First in a series of suspenseful police thrillers that will grab your attention from the start. Officer Frank Campello loses his longtime partner Rand, Frank is assigned a new partner Andy Polanski not long after his friend, and partner was killed in a shootout. Frank’s district commander Julio Lopez tells Frank more or less that he does not have a choice in the matter; he is to keep an eye on this Polanski character.

Campello does not trust Polanski, which made it hard to be assigned to investigate the murder of Trina Martinez with his new partner. Campello has his hands full watching Polanski is every move and trying to investigate a homicide.

Very fast-paced book full of police corruption thrills and chills. I enjoyed the mystery, suspense, and realism that Dodson has written in this book. A former cop himself having an insider’s view of what it is like to work in law enforcement makes this book that much more exciting, and sit on the edge of your seat crime thriller you won’t want to put down. ( )

First in a series of suspenseful police thrillers that will grab your attention from the start. Officer Frank Campello loses his longtime partner Rand, Frank is assigned a new partner Andy Polanski not long after his friend, and partner was killed in a shootout. Frank’s district commander Julio Lopez tells Frank more or less that he does not have a choice in the matter; he is to keep an eye on this Polanski character.

Campello does not trust Polanski, which made it hard to be assigned to investigate the murder of Trina Martinez with his new partner. Campello has his hands full watching Polanski is every move and trying to investigate a homicide.

Very fast-paced book full of police corruption thrills and chills. I enjoyed the mystery, suspense, and realism that Dodson has written in this book. A former cop himself having an insider’s view of what it is like to work in law enforcement makes this book that much more exciting, and sit on the edge of your seat crime thriller you won’t want to put down. ( )

An interesting crime novel. Not normally one of my favorite genres, but enjoyable. I would definitely pick up more books by this author.

-Philip A. Troy

They say to never judge a book by its cover. And I don’t. But the cover of the book has to make sense in relation to the story. The cover of Sons of Jude by Brandt Dodson features a young female cop, but there is no young female cop in the story. The story’s main characters are two male cops and a young female reporter. While reading the book, I kept expecting to see a young female cop appear, but it never happened.

While the cover doesn’t make sense to the story, the story itself was good. Amazon features this description:
“The body of a young woman is found in a dumpster in Chicago and detectives Andy Polanski and Frank Campello are charged with finding the killer. The two are polar opposites. Polanski is the son of a disgraced Chicago police officer and is fastidious about his reputation. He has also recently been transferred from another district having blown the whistle on some corrupt cops. Campello, however, takes a live-and-let-live approach to his life and job.
It soon becomes clear, as another young woman--a potential witness--is murdered, that a sex-trafficking operation in Chicago is preying on illegal aliens. As the ill-matched pair dig deeper, an influential alderman and his son are implicated. Then Polanski is framed for a narcotics offense, devastating the cases against the corrupt officers and the alderman. Only when Campello is challenged by a local minister, whom he meets when visiting Polanski, does he find the motivation to seek justice.”

The story itself features interesting characters, all of whom are flawed, which is important to any story. Without exciting and flawed characters, the words on the page can fall flat. The chapters are short, which makes for an easy read, but the book is only 256 pages long and I found the story didn’t really start picking up until halfway through the book. Campbello and Polanski are at odds with each other, but for a main character, Polanski seemingly disappeared halfway through the book, with only a few mentions here and there. Although it’s integral to the story why he stopped appearing on the pages, it still didn’t make sense because his character is integral to the plot of the story.
Sons of Jude is a decent read, if you are a fan of Chicago and police fiction. There’s no question that Brandt Dodson is a former police officer himself. The best part about the story is the accuracy regarding police operations. There was less suspense than I was expecting, and by the end of the book I wasn’t surprised at the outcome, which was a tad disappointing because I like to be surprised and caught off guard when I read crime thrillers or mysteries. I expect a twist that I didn’t see coming, or some great revelation about a character that came from left field. Overall, for a police crime thriller, the book is a good read and should be recommended to fans of crime genres. ( )

When a good cop exposes bad cops, you would expect that he will be the hero. Well - yes, he is. But not for the other cops. And not for a cop that just lost his partner.

This is how the book opens. And what you follow is what you would expect - noone is what they look, corruption is in places one least expect, people start turning up dead and somewhere along the lines there is love, new partnerships and a lot of action and backstabbing. A lot of the cliches of the genre are there but then you almost cannot write this kind of story otherwise. I wish people stop setting these stories in Chicago though.

And then Dodson remembered that he is actually writing a Christian book - and threw in something about it. Almost like a patch. And an afterthought. It did not change anything and if the parts were removed, the book will not loose anything in any way or form. Which suits me fine - I almost passed on this book because of the publisher and the expectation. ( )