Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency, Inc
 | 9 DRAGONS
Michael Connelly
Reviewed in: Publishers Weekly, page 38.
Review Date: 2009-09-21
Bestseller Connelly nimbly balances Harry Bosch's personal and professional lives, both of which take a substantial beating, in his 14th novel to feature the LAPD homicide detective. Bosch, last seen with his recently discovered half-brother, lawyer Mickey Haller, in The Brass Verdict (2008), investigates the shooting death of a liquor store owner. While the murder has none of the hallmarks of a regular gang hit, Bosch discovers the dead man was paying a weekly protection fee to a man Bosch suspects is part of a Chinese triad. Even though Bosch is warned to drop the case, he doesn't take the threat seriously until he receives a video showing his 13-year-old daughter, Madeline, being kidnapped in Hong Kong, where she lives with her mother and Bosch's ex-wife, a former FBI agent. Bosch flies to Hong Kong to try to rescue Madeline, prepared to face down one of the world's most powerful crime syndicates. Tenacious as ever, Bosch is even more formidable in his role as a protective father. 10-city author tour. (Oct. 13)
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Gar Anthony Haywood.
Feb. 2010. 224p. Severn House. |
*Starred Booklist Review*: This gripping stand-alone thriller marks the long-awaited return of Gar Anthony Haywood, author of the critically acclaimed Aaron Gunner series (All the Lucky Ones Are Dead, 2000). Errol “Handy” White is working as a handyman in the Twin Cities when he gets word that his old friend, R. J. Burrows, has been murdered in Los Angeles. Handy knows he must return to L.A. to attend the funeral, but he also knows that when he sets foot in L.A., where he, R. J., and another friend, O’Neal Holden, now a rising politician, came up together, a terrible secret is in danger of coming to light. As young men, the three friends dabbled in crime in South Central L.A. until a revenge heist at a drug dealer’s home went tragically awry. Handy has been running ever since, from the crime and from himself, but now realizes that if he is to help R. J.’s daughter find her father’s killer, his running days are over. Haywood melds an intricately plotted but highly suspenseful thriller to a moving story of belated coming-of-age, as the introspective, deeply troubled Handy forces himself to confront what has gone wrong with his life. As in the Gunner series, Haywood exhibits a remarkable eye for detail, both in describing the landscape of poverty (“the bathroom had a toilet that only flushed when it was willing”) and in exposing the nuances of character. It’s been too long between books for a writer who has always belonged in the upper echelon of American crime fiction. —Bill Ott
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 18 November 2009 18:16 |
 | RAIN GODS
James Lee Burke.
Simon & Schuster, $25.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4391-2824-4 |
Publishers Weekly Review:
MWA Grandmaster Burke spins a tale replete with colorful prose and epic confrontations in his second novel to feature smalltown Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland (after Lay Down My Sword and Shield). An anonymous phone call leads Holland, a Korean vet who survived a POW camp, to the massacre and burial site of nine Thai women, a crime that brings FBI and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officials running. As a slew of bad guys relocated from New Orleans after Katrina grapple for advantage in new territory, mercurial killer “Preacher” Jack Collins finds plenty of work. Pete Flores, a possible witness to the massacre, and his girlfriend are targeted by Collins for elimination, and by the FBI for bait. Holland must protect the hapless Flores and his girl from both. Three strong female characters complement the full roster of sharply drawn lowlifes. The battle of wills and wits between Holland and Collins delivers everything Burke’s fans expect.(July) |
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 | DOWN IN THE FLOOD
Kenneth Abel
Thomas Dunne Books / August 2009 |
Publisher's Weekly Starred Review. Set in New Orleans shortly before and during the Katrina catastrophe, Abel's outstanding third Danny Chaisson crime novel (after 2002's The Burying Field) strikes with hurricane force, leaving plenty of shattered truisms in its wake. When sadistic hoodlums kidnap Louis Sams, who's been pressured by the Feds to turn in his crooked concrete manufacturer boss, Danny, a former assistant DA now making a slim living with insurance claims and deposition summaries, desperately tries to save Sams. As Danny slogs through a city violent at best and now caught up in a killing rage, drowning because of engineering failures, construction shortcuts and venal politicians, he discovers that all he and some of the poorest of the storm's victims have is each other. Brilliantly executed, Abel's exploration of decency and grace in the face of human brutality and natural disaster testifies to mutual respect, the only thing, Danny knows, that keeps the knife from your throat. |
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Ken Bruen and Reed Farrel Coleman. Busted Flush (www.bustedflushpress.com),
$15 paper (200p) ISBN 978-1-935415-07-7 |
Divided into two halves, this short, brutally poetic tour of the underside of Brooklyn, Boston and Philadelphia marks the first collaboration between noir masters Bruen (The Guards) and Coleman (The James Deans). Drawing on the classic theme of childhood friends pulled toward different sides of the law, the coauthors tell the story of Nick and Todd in quick concise scenes, sketching backstories and love lives, flipping time and incidents like Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Running errands under the cold eyes of an enforcer, Griffin, for the Bible-quoting gangster Boyle, the heroes learn fast enough that “you live in the rain forest, you get wet.” And looming symbolically over their narrow, violent world is the north tower of the World Trade Center. Bruen and Coleman shine, dropping in-jokes, experimenting and displaying all the literary chops that have made their novels such cult favorites among mystery fans. (Sept.) |
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Last Updated on Friday, 02 October 2009 15:52 |
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