Private detective Rick Cahill, recently blinded, agrees to assist in an investigation involving a former close friend and associate, Turk Muldoon. Clearly the continuation of a previous story arc, but in the noir fashion it works fine as a standalone.

Cahill reminds me strongly of Max Holman in Robert Crais' The Two Minute Rule: a basically decent guy in a bad spot trying to climb out via obsession over something hopefully more controllable.

I like the short chapters: they keep me in the moment. The ruminations are repetitive in the way of a scared person reassuring himself of his situation and circumstances.

What I do not like is the lying and the wishy washy flipping between Turk being a close friend vs a former friend, and the emphatic certainty that Turk is innocent vs the stolid certainty that he is not innocent. Doubt I could deal with, but the absolutes make me shake my head.

Overall I enjoy how the story unfolds. I recommend this book to fans of Robert Crais.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oceanview for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

I read this book straight through. Love Rick Cahill, and Leah. Moira the "other" PI requests Rick help on helping her determine if she should take a case. The case is surveillance of Rick's old friend Turk's girlfriend. Rick being blind is a huge hurdle, but his other senses given unusual insight. The plot was well developed and kept me turning pages as fast as I could read. Excellent story.

This is more like it!

The last (and only) Rick Cahill book I read was Lost Tomorrows, and I found him to be a bit of an Eeyore, constantly mired in guilt about his wife's death.

SPOILER!

He also got shot in the face and that was a helluva way to end things.

He survived, and it's now nine months later. Cahill is blind - with the chance that his eyesight may or may not return - and his girlfriend Leah (you may remember her as the sister of his former partner at the Santa Barbara PD) is splitting time between Santa Barbara and Cahill's place in San Diego.

Moira - a San Diego-based PI - gets in touch with Cahill and wants him to come with her on a job. What job? Turk Muldoon, and old friend of Cahill's, has hired her to spy on his girlfriend Shay, whom he thinks is seeing someone else. Cahill points out he can't see anything, but Moira is more interested in his ears, and if he can tell what Turk is feeling and how apt he would be to snap and kill Shay if she was seeing someone else. Moira had given news of a wife's infidelity previously to a doctor (her own son's pediatrician, no less) who proceeded to off his wife, child, and then himself. She'd rather that not be the case here, and Cahill assures her Turk would never do something like that.

Shay, of course, is then found dead, and all indications are it's Turk who killed her after an argument overheard by neighbors. Moira rails at Cahill, that he was wrong and now they've gotten Shay killed, but Cahill disagrees. Moira exits the case, but Cahilll wants to help his pal any way he can, even if he still can't see.

Turk is arrested for murder, but Cahill has found information that tells him Idaho is where he needs to go. He ropes Moira back in, and they're off, to talk to one recalcitrant cowboy but then to a more garrulous one. From there, it's off to a PI who was trying to track down Shay's father, who disappeared with over $800K dollars from the sale of the family ranch, leaving Shay and her mother with nothing. Her father was identified as the decedent in an auto wreck in Mexico, under his own name - this after the PI tells them Shay's father used various aliases.

While all of this is going on, Rick keeps smelling the same man, repeatedly -following him and Moira, following just Cahill. But Moira never sees him, and Cahill dubs him the Invisible Man.

With that information, they head back to San Diego, to figure out a way to find Shay's maybe/maybe-not dead father and a ranch hand who worked on the ranch prior to its sale. By now, we are all fairly sure Shay found her dad, and that he likely had something to do with her death. I will reiterate for whatever nth time it is that I still don't like characters going to the bad guy, alone, without telling anyone.

I won't go into details about the end except to say that "blind vigil" certainly is in play the last 20% of the book

Four and a half stars, dinged for character stupidity. I'm feeling generous, though, and I did like the story quite a lot, so I'm rounding up this time: five stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Oceanview for the reading copy.

Release date: 01 Dec 2020.

This is miles ahead of Lost Tomorrows, in my book (ha), and I'm

Kudos to author Matt Coyle on the exciting novel Blind Vigil. I read it straight through as I found the plot exciting and the characters quite interesting. Rick Cahill as the private eye reluctantly retired when he went bling following a shooting injury is spot on. I do confess to being somewhat queasy as I read of his exploits without sight. But having his sense of smell enhanced helped him pick up on a mystery man who turns out to be key to the plot. It was predictable, given the constant updates on Cahill's vision, that he would regain his sight. Making that less obvious might have enhanced the story. But, it's darn good and I recommend it to others.
Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.

A very satisfying read featuring a determined private investigator.
I liked everything about “Blind Vigil”, by Matt Coyle (Oceanview Publishing): the dark, sarcastic wounded hero, who happens to be very affectionate and loyal with his friends, the well-developed characters, the suspense plotline with its underlying feelings of sadness and loss and the well written first person point of view.
Rick Cahill is a great wounded hero and the cohesiveness the author brought to his blindness is awesome. We readers are always aware that the story is being told from the point of view of a blind person. Being deliberately vague here, I’ll just add that the progress is well written and believable, too, with a compelling focus on how Rick absorbs and deals with the changes.
The various characters are all relatable and complex and added depth to the story. Turk is another delightful wounded male character, I really felt for him and how he was struggling with grief. I particularly loved Rick and Turk’s friendship, how they’re so affectionate and loyal to each other despite their conflicts. It reminded me how friendship can be such a powerful thing in our lives.

Wow, what a great book. Besides the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed the plot, the main character Rick Cahill being blind really put a different spin on everything, and I love the way Matt Coyle was able to bring him to life and explain things the way he did. If I had the time and didn’t have to work I would have read this book in one sitting, I enjoyed it that much.
Rick Cahill has felt helpless over the last year since he lost his eyesight. Continuing his career as a private investigator was out of the question, even without being blind it had almost gotten him killed. However, now that his friend Thomas ‘Turk’ Muldoon wants his girlfriend Shay Sommers investigated, Rick is quite happy when Moira asks him to assist her. Turk is sure that Shay is cheating on her, and before he asks her to marry him, he needs to know. Moira didn’t have a great experience with the last client that suspected his partner was cheating on him, so she’s apprehensive how this one will turn out. Rick’s just happy to be back in the game. A brilliant read. 5/5 Star Rating.

Ok. This was the best book in the series so far. Tense, full of emotional situations and we see Rick at his most vulnerable. Yet he's still capable of finding the truth and function through his blindness. Risking his very life for his old friend Turk, and refusing to let him be framed for a murder he didn't commit. The last two pages literally brought me to tears. This was powerful human suffering, so many losing so much, yet becoming even closer as human beings and friends. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to read Blind Vigil. You should too.

Sharp, suspenseful, and poignant. I recommend this book, I really love how suspenseful it is!

I can’t wait for more books by Matt Coyle