The Inn, by James Patterson and Candice Fox; Edoardo Ballerini is the narrator.
Two Boston cops were fired after being disgraced by their behavior. Although Malone and Robinson had also been close friends, one betrayed the other and they parted as enemies. Both had loved being cops, but their careers were over.
Bill Robinson and his wife move to Gloucester, MA where they open an inn. It had always been his wife’s dream to retire and run an inn, so they simply started a bit early. The inn’s guests and full time residents were all misfits of one kind or another. One could not speak, one was an author, one never left his room, one was a journalist for a local paper who had formerly been an FBI agent, one was in a wheelchair and housebound, one was a sheriff, one was a retired doctor, one was a teenage relative, and one was a former soldier. Each character has a secret, a hidden past and seemed emotionally compromised. The past of each one was revealed as the story developed. All were misfits of one kind or another, who seemed only able to fit in at the Gloucester Inn. When kids started dying from drug overdoses, Robinson wanted to rid the town of the newcomer who had brought this plague to his home. He has no authority to do what he does, and he is warned about the danger involved if he gets tangled up with this kingpin. Cline is unforgiving and violent and does not allow or tolerate any defiance.
After Bill’s efforts to stop Cline bring death and violence to his family and his Inn, instead of retreating, he becomes more embroiled with trying to stop the drug fest. Working with some inn residents, among them a mentally challenged veteran suffering from PTSD and a former FBI agent, a woman for whom he soon developed romantic interests that had long been idle since his wife’s death, he began to chase down the drug lord and proceeded to bring further havoc to his town. It seemed that the townspeople’s allegiance was easily bought and paid for by Cline. They did his bidding and few could be trusted.
The book definitely had the fingerprint of a female author. The dialogue was unnecessarily crude, even as it also tried to be lyrical. The story seemed incongruous. There were too many crises occurring without satisfying resolution. The characters were alternately low end or endowed with a sophistication that was not credible. One unsatisfying surprise reared its head after another, and there was no bridge to get from one place to the other.
The devices used to interest the reader, like the discovery, in the desert, of an arm unattached to a body, or finding a rat stuck in a toilet drain that later becomes a household pet, or seeing a detached human head in front of a statue, make the story ridiculous, at times, rather than more mysterious. Most of the odd events seemed to have little purpose and were used for shock value only. Scenes seemed to change at random with events brought up and then dropped. If introduced again, later on, it never quite knitted into the story smoothly. It became disjointed. What could have been a good detective novel about the drug world, descended instead into chick lit and romance.
Murder consistently followed mayhem and vice versa. Most of the characters were damaged. They were emotionally challenged. They all had secret pasts. The novel was filled with stereotypes easily that were easily identified as misfits. Just when you thought the story was finally heading in one direction, the author introduced another diversion, another murder, another hint at trouble which often turned out to be nothing of import. It became tedious.
I would not recommend the book for anything but a mindless vacation or a plane flight. Then the novel might work as a necessary distraction. The main message seemed to be that everyone was capable of being corrupted by greed with or without the fear of reprisals.