This is a masterpiece of the semi-hard-boiled detective genre; all the elements, and then some. I could see the ending coming, as could our hero, but it came with a bang anyway. And thank goodness I had the foresight to take the next one in the series out of the library at the same time. I don't know how I could have put this one down if I hadn't had the next one right there on the table to pick up immediately. Don't start with this one if you haven't read any of the Marsh Tanner series before. He has a past, and you need to know a bit of it before you read Past Tense.
Reviewed in 2007 ( )

Tanner is stunned when his old friend Charle Sleet, a cop, pulls a gun in the courtroom and blasts a man on trial for sexual abuse of his daughter who is seeking damages after recovering her memory of the abuse years later. Then two others turn up dead.

Sleet's actions are so out of character that Tanner and his friends investigate. Sleet is of no help. He pleads guilty at the arraignment (reversed by his lawyer whom he didn't want), won't speak to any of his friends, and refuses to cooperate in any way. No one has a clue why Charlie would embark on this killing spree.

This one is truly suspenseful. It leaves the reader just as much in the dark as Tanner and the reader has to piece the puzzle together along with the protagonist. The ending is a real shocker which asks just how far we might be willing to go to support a close friend. Excellent.
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