Blood Relations - Hardcover

Peak, John A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312151829 ISBN 13: 9780312151829

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1997

Retired police sergeant Robert MacDonald's son is murdered, a crime that brings the sergeant out of retirement, and as he investigates the killing, he uncovers more about himself and his son than he would have wished

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From the Author:

Author's Comment on Blood Relations
I believe that any story that earns the respect implied by repetition has some purpose. It may be the perfectly legitimate purpose of entertainment, but to have lasting and truly engaging entertainment value there must be more than that. On the other hand, a story that only teaches a moral lesson without providing entertainment will not be read beyond what is required of students by a misguided curriculum. You may be able to get your close friends and economic dependents to buy the book but you can’t make them turn the page. A good story should speak to something real and universal, something a reader can recognize and respond to, one way or another.

I started this book after rereading Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. No, there isn’t any incest in it that I’m aware of, but there is (quoting George Steiner) a fate "lurking for Man on the road to Corinth."

Our cultural myth has it that if you work hard and keep the commandments of honesty, industry and thrift, you will reach your reward. Unfortunately, this is a myth. We believe in it, not because of any objective evidence that we can see around us but because we need to believe. When the governing myth crumbles in the face of personal catastrophe, then Order is, itself, in question; the alternative universe of Chaos is suddenly quite real.

Sixty-five-year-old Sergeant Robert MacDonald, an expert marksman, is in charge of the police department shooting range. When his wife of forty years finally succumbs to a lingering cancer, he has erased his savings, sold his house, spent the college fund intended for their two sons and accumulated a large debt. Two years later his older son, another cop, is found dead from a single bullet through the head. Other policemen, long-respected friends, believe it is a suicide. Even Robert’s surviving son agrees. Robert is having none of it.

Determined to prove that the cause of death was murder, MacDonald returns to patrol duty, the same assignment his son had, to do his own investigation. He learns more than he should have about his sons, himself and the grip of chaotic events on good, decent people.

Even when MacDonald becomes a target of murder, even when his surviving son is attacked, he keeps on going. Once started, there is no way for him to stop the cycle of destiny and accident, the maelstrom that draws him relentlessly down toward chaos.

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