The Testing Point


Fiction - Thriller - General
256 Pages
Reviewed on 08/08/2012
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Alice DiNizo for Readers' Favorite

Tremont, Massachusetts, police officer Ben Grasso turns his cruiser into the parking lot of the Downtown Villa Motel. A young woman's bloody body is being carried out on a stretcher as Ben's fellow police officer Andy McGill is to be taken into custody. Undesirable local Billy Montano stands by, claiming that Andy had beaten up the woman, a hooker, and then shot her. Andy, on the other hand, claims that he received a police call to go to the room of Billy and the hooker, but there is no record of any such police call. Ben went to local school with Andy and knows that Andy was an outstanding scholar and athlete who always helped other kids with their homework and always stood up to bullies on behalf of others. Andy has a Masters degree in Political Science from Columbia but chose to come back to Tremont to work as a policeman. Ben and his new partner, Dina Greenbaum, investigate circumstances, especially when Billy Montano's body is recovered from the nearby Mystic River. Dina is a crackerjack police officer as she is just back from Israel where she served in the Mossad, but she and Ben are mystified when Andy's college research shows that the corrupt Tremont police force has scored high efficiency test marks. What is going on?

Eric Collins, the author of "The Testing Point", knows his police procedures as his family was in Massachusetts law enforcement. "The Testing Point" is well-written, well-formatted with a plot line, and filled with unexpected, interesting twists and turns that flow to the very end of the story. Ben Grasso and Dina Greenbaum make police persons that leap off the page and into readers' hearts. They are tough, smart and daring, and totally believable as they fight their way to the story's end. "The Testing Point" is one great book that belongs on reading lists everywhere.

Jean Brickell

Eric Collins has written a great new police story, "The Testing Point", that points a finger at police corruption. The only problem is that Ben and Dina, police partners, don't know who the king pin is in the corruption and they must find it out because now their lives are in danger for digging for information. This is a new twist on crime novel but a very interesting one at that. The more Ben and Dina get involved, the more dangerous it becomes for them. Also in danger is Andy, the police officer that Ben and Dina feel is being set up on a murder charge even though the evidence points that he did it.

Here is a great new cop mystery that you will really enjoy. The pace is fast and the characters are quite interesting. The plot is one that you will have a hard time figuring out but that makes it more interesting! Ben is the main character and his partner is Dina who came from Israel. They must solve why Andy, another police officer, is being framed for a murder and is arrested for the crime. Who is responsible for the frame up? Why are Ben and Dina under attack? They don't know who is after them and why. There is a lot of action in this book, "The Testing Point", by Eric Collins. I am sure that if you enjoy good police and crime novels you will definitely like this one.

Paul J

When rookie police officer Ben Grasso gets the call, he has no idea that the felon he is supposed to be transporting is actually fellow officer and former classmate Andy McGill. McGill is to be charged for the motel-room murder of a prostitute. Although everyone believes the case to be open-and-shut, Ben knows McGill well and is having trouble believing the official story. Ben is assigned a new partner, Officer Dina Greenbaum, another rookie but with some pretty heavy baggage of her own. After learning the facts of the McGill case, and the inconsistencies, she joins Ben's unsanctioned investigation. Once they get involved, they find they must fight organized crime and police corruption, and quickly find that they can't tell friend from foe and may have started something they can't finish. With contract killers out to get them, in the end they find that in many instances things are not always as they appear, if they live long enough to see it through.

I found "The Testing Point" to be a well-written police mystery. The two main characters, Ben and Dina, are well-thought-out and their interaction as partners is well done. I found the dialog suitable to the characters and situations and the plot to be strong. The amount of strong language and violence found in the book is not excessive. However, I did find one small thing off-putting. The scenes concerning the baseball games were a little longer than necessary. While it was good to show aspects of life other than the police department, I felt they weren’t really necessary and seemed like fillers and actually they took away from the story somewhat. But, overall, it is a very good story.