Cherry blossoms litter D.C.’s Reflecting Pool walkways with a lush pink carpet. It’s spring in the nation’s capital when detectives McDermott “Mac” Burke and Oliver Shaw investigate the suspicious death of a high-profile law firm’s managing partner. The attorney had no significant medical history, but he worked long hours and amassed a list of disgruntled lawyers who had been fired for not producing the billable hours dictated by the firm.

"More than a finely honed detective procedural plump with investigative forensics, James Spoonhour's INCENTIVE FOR DEATH delves into the lives of law enforcement personnel..."

A medical examiner detects a pin prick on the cadaver’s neck, and Mac and Oliver surmise that the victim may have been injected with succinylcholine, aka “sux.” Sux --- aside from the obvious implication for the dead attorney --- is a tranquilizer that veterinarians inject into horses, one that quickly dissipates. A large dose for a human causes instant death, leaving only trace amounts of potassium. “So, the method may be fairly easy to determine. It’s just a matter of whodunnit.”

Contemporaneously, the detectives sleuth another death at a sports stadium, this one not an attorney. Questioning family members of the decedents, Mac and Oliver glean a possible common thread: Both dead men had sold their term life insurance policies to a viatical company at a steep discount. Portland Life Solutions collects full benefits when the former policy holders die, a true incentive for death. Cops don’t believe in coincidence, “people dropping dead who are all connected to this viatical company.”

More curious death cases resulting from causes other than the unique succinylcholine murder weapon wind up in Mac’s lap. That common thread is twined with others to make a sturdy rope that becomes a metaphoric noose for the perpetrators. Karma is a killer, justifiable homicide.

Mac is happily divorced --- with benefits. He and his ex, CIA operative Maggie “Mags” Hampton, share a home and occasionally a bed. The ménage works for them. And Mags has connections that Mac can’t access, a symbiotic relationship that many married couples envy.

More than a finely honed detective procedural plump with investigative forensics, James Spoonhour's INCENTIVE FOR DEATH delves into the lives of law enforcement personnel: what makes them tick, the overwhelming desire to take the bad guys --- and gals --- off the street. The concept of this phenomenal mystery “hard-boils” to a simple phrase: the need for greed.