Penance by Dan O’Shea
Crime , Dan O'Shea , Exhibit A / May 7, 2013

Born and raised in Chicago, Detective John Lynch might just be about to die there too. Because one dark secret might be about to tear a whole city apart. A pious old woman steps out of the Sacred Heart confessional and is shot dead by a sniper with what at first appears to be a miraculous and impossible shot. Colonel Tech Weaver dispatches a team from Langley to put the shooter and anyone else who gets in the way in a body bag before a half century of national secrets are revealed. Detective John Lynch, the son of a murdered Chicago cop, finds himself cast into an underworld of political corruption and guilty secrets, as he tries to uncover the truth about what s really going on before another innocent citizen gets killed. In some weird cosmic synchronicity, I finish one book about a killer loose on the streets of Chicago only to pick up the next from my review pile and discover that it’s a book about a killer loose on the streets of Chicago. No need to panic though, the good news is that The Shining Girls and Penance could not be more different. Both are fun reads but, I’m…