Grief and a Murder Inquiry in A Brother’s Obsession

A loss that still occupies Evan

A Brother’s Obsession by Christopher Coates introduces Evan Brown, who has spent more than a decade tormented by his sister’s death and his inability to save her. The novel places that continuing grief and guilt alongside a series of murders in Tucson.

Coates builds Evan’s part of the thriller around his continued fixation on a specific loss. That private history supplies one strand of the story, while the deaths elsewhere in Tucson create an urgent problem for investigators who must establish what connects the victims.

Detectives search for a pattern

Detectives Dan Felty and MacKenzie Bell investigate killings whose victims appear to have been chosen at random. With deaths mounting, understanding the murderer’s motives becomes part of the attempt to prevent another attack. The inquiry grows more dangerous as the detectives approach their target.

A possible connection to someone from the murderer’s past adds another question. For readers interested in crime fiction concerned with motive, the premise offers a case in which investigators must look beyond an apparent lack of pattern. Evan’s fixation is part of that fictional landscape, while the police work supplies the immediate forward movement. A possible witness from the past may offer a way forward when the apparent randomness of the current deaths gives the detectives little to work with.