Tossing in plot device, With Wanton Disregard has enough suspects with the intention to keep the reader guessing who the killer is all the way through. The novel opens with the homicide of Dr. Scott Connolly whose body is in gruesome shreds, displaying his intestines all over his bed for a grisly murder scene in his home in the Belmont Shore high-rent district of Long Beach, California. In comes Tim Mulrooney, a detective for the Long Beach Police Department, not short of drama in his life as a divorcee pushing fifty years old, and recently suffering from a heart attack. Desperate to catch the perverse individual responsible for the crime, Mulrooney, a straightforward and sincere character, pulls you in this story and makes you want to be there for what comes next.

What is implicit from the title of the book is that the killer must have malice toward the victim. Yet, suspicions fall on Lauren Connolly, the wife of the victim, and Anya Gallien, her closest friend. Doubts arise from the discrepancies in Anya’s testimony and her failing a polygraph test, adding to the fact that a witness sees her exiting the Connolly house around the time of the murder, she becomes the chief suspect and for a spell is in the Sybil Brand Institute for Women. A sorrowful character with trouble in her past, Anya hails from Communist driven Romania. More pathetic is Anya, when she becomes suspicious of Lauren’s involvement in the crime, she is willing to protect her only friend at any cost even confessing to murder despite her innocence. Landing into such a mess and way in over her head, the reader has to wonder who will not empathize with the character of Anya?

The investigation heats up when a link between Scott Connolly’s murder connects to similar homicides of porn dealer Clarence Smolley and two other people at a peep show in Trenton, New Jersey. When selling Lauren’s favorite Thiebaud painting for money is not enough to cover his nasty drug habit and a few short-term loans, the gynecologist has been secretly recording himself having sex with women and putting the videos on thumb drives selling as pornography ending up in the hands of Smolley. This is yet another time in the novel that Gwen Banta doesn’t give you time to catch your breath before she hits you with another shocking twist.

With the clues pointing many directions, Tim Mulrooney must put forth a new theory as to who is responsible for the murder of Scott Connolly adding an element of suspense to the plot which is not the slam-dunk it appears to be from the start. With a writing style that is clear and immersive, With Wanton Disregard is a spellbinding thriller that has you from the first page to the very last.