Ray Quinn makes his way down a deserted street in Orlando, Florida, looking like a man many years his senior as he struggles with his cane and his plastic hip of 10 months. He notices two youths about 20 years old who are tailing him. He may be weak physically, but many years as a police detective were going to save him from trouble. He looked in the rearview mirrors of the parked cars he was passing to follow his stalkers. Eventually, they disappeared down an alley and ended up in front of him demanding his wallet. Through a distracting move, Ray had a gun aimed at the two and gave them 10 seconds to get lost, which they did. So began the post-detective adventures of Ray Quinn in “The Night Watchman” by Mark Mynheir.
Ray had to take a medical retirement from the Orlando Police Department after he was severely wounded twice and his partner, Trisha, whom he loved, was killed during an ambush. It was as though Ray had nothing to live for. He resided in a rundown apartment and used liquor as his medication when not working in the lobby of the Coral Bay Condos as a night watchman. It was at the condo that the real action started and the author’s development of interpersonal relationships with the other characters of the book.
Crevis Creighton, a 20 year old goofy, gangly looking guy, was Ray’s co-worker on the night shift security. The braggadocios and naive Crevis always wanted to talk and bothered Ray so much that Ray would send Crevis on wild goose chases around the building by telling Crevis he saw a shadowy figure on one of the security monitors and tell him to go check it out. Crevis was gung ho in all that he did. Over time, Ray and Crevis developed a trusting relationship with each other. Of course, it did help that Crevis showed he could back up his bragging by saving Ray’s skin twice.
Pam, one of the key characters in the book, meets Ray one night at the condo all flustered because she cannot reach her brother, David, who lives in the condo and runs Outreach Orlando Ministries. With Ray and Crevis’ help, the trio, upon finding David and a prostitute shot to death, set out to prove the police wrong in their classification of the crime as a murder/suicide. There is an abundance of suspects, including a possible Orlando Police Department connection not only in these two murders, but additional murders as well as the killing of Trisha and the near death of Ray.
Ray and Crevis do not endear themselves to Ray’s former boss, Sergeant Oscar Yancey, because of not following many police procedures to uncover the reasons for the murders and “Who done it”.
I enjoyed this book because it was not an easy task to determine how it was going to end, scrupulous politicians and community leaders were “brought down”, good wins out over evil, and Ray’s life was changed from a down and out drinker who saw little hope in life after being disabled to one of encourager to Pam and Crevis, thus enriching their lives as well as others.
I was going to point out that the ending of The Night Watchman, written in 2010, ends perfectly for a sequel. However, the author thought so too because in checking the Internet, I found he wrote another mystery, “The Corruptible,” in 2011, staring both Ray Quinn and Crevis Creighton! I will make sure to include this second book on my list of “To Read” books.
Jeff Hall, Honey Brook, contributes columns to Tri County Record.
