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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
One sure way to engage reader sympathy in a crime novel is to involve the hero's family; in Roger "Butch" Karp's 15 earlier adventures (Resolved; Absolute Rage; etc.), the DA's family has paid dearly for this inclusion. Wife Marlene is disfigured from a letter bomb, 11-year-old son Giancarlo has been blinded by a would-be assassin, and daughter, Lucy, was abducted twice: "His entire family seemed to attract danger as picnics did ants." Marlene is attending a Taos art therapy school, healing the psychic toll of dispensing vigilante justice and thwarting terrorists. Lucy is there, too, leaving dad behind to battle "evil incarnate" in the form of Andrew Kane, a sociopath running for mayor of New York. Kane's pursuits include insider trading, drugs, prostitution, money laundering, arms sales and extortion. Characters include a killer priest, corrupt policemen, a gallant American-Indian cop and mole people who crawl out of the city's sewers to haunt the night, among others. Tanenbaum keeps all these balls in the air while lecturing on the evils of racism, the plight of the modern Indian, the value of honor, the evils of gangsta rap and much, much more. It is by turns boring, insightful, pedestrian, silly, maudlin, exhausting and exciting.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
As Tanenbaum's fans know, there's nothing simple about a Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi thriller. The action always unfolds slowly and deliberately, cleverly planned to the last detail, and the richly drawn protagonists constantly struggle with thought-provoking, hugely complicated questions about morality, faith, and family. This sixteenth in the popular series is a bit more philosophical than most, despite drawing its impetus from a scandal picked right from the headlines. The vicious murder of a West Coast rapper sets things in motion, unleashing a white-hot cascade of events that expose violence, greed, and corruption not only at the NYPD and the DA's office but also at the city's Catholic archdiocese. Tanenbaum smoothly reprises events of the previous two books as he relentlessly builds suspense and gets ever closer to the hearts and minds of his singular characters. Will Butch "lose his soul on the altar of politics" by running for district attorney? Will Marlene forgive herself and return to her family? Can Lucy overcome the memory of the man who raped her? Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.1 out of 5 stars (56 customer reviews)
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Okay, a hoax, I get it!, Jan 12 2005
By W. P. Strange "Bill's shelf" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hoax (Hardcover)
Those in the know have known for a long time that the real talent behind Tanenbaum's Butch Karp books has been Michael Gruber. Like many of the reviewers here I knew that Gruber had gone out on his own after a split with Tanenbaum, and like them I was willing to give the name on the cover a chance to prove his own talent. I'm sorry to say I was disappointed. From the first page it is abundantly clear that the style has suffered, and Butch Karp has hit the skids. The question is now, did Tanenbaum do any of the writing or plotting of the early Karp novels, or is he only a front man? The quick answer may indeed be, yes.Butch and his vigilanty wife have slowly become annoying, cloying and just too predictable. It is time to put them away and explore new fields, "Hoax" has rung the death knell for a once interesting pair of characters and plots that made sense and writing that galluped with tension and drama.
"Hoax", as the title, is obviously a pun. The Karp series has been a gigantic "hoax" and now the truth is revealed. To be sure, do what I did and check out Michael Gruber's first novel with his name on the cover, "Trpic of Night", and you'll get the joke. Gruber was the masyermind, the talent - the "writer" all along. For the same kind of former great read just look for a different name on the cover and a new, more vibrant hero named, Paz.
Tanenbaum, Karp, etal are history and that is too bad we say good bye to an old friend and hello to a new, more interesting series by the true master, Michael Gruber.
29 of 33 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
a Milli Vanilli experience, Jan 20 2005
By sarahbellum - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hoax (Hardcover)
I have been a faithful and devoted reader of Tanenbaum's books for a long time. He was the one thriller writer whose books I would pounce on and buy (or beg or borrow or steal) without even bothering to read the blurb on the inside flap.Imagine my surprise when I started reading this newest Tanenbaum, only to discover that it was, apparently, a counterfeit. Within a few pages I had the eerie sensation that though the characters had familiar names, they were simply not the same people I had come to know and love. And the style! Yikes! One of the great pleasure of a Tanenbaum novel has always been the clever repartee, the tongue-in-cheek wit, the terrific use of irony. Lo and behold, all had disappeared from sight. Instead, what I found was clumsy and--dare I say it--amateurish writing that should never have seen the light of day. Marlene, my all-time favorite character in any thriller, has turned from a stylish, smart, sassy New Yorker to a rather boring and wooden two-dimensional parody of herself. Butch is reduced to maundering about the past. The kids are mere shadows of their former selves, and the plotting, sequencing, and dialogue are not worthy of a high-school creative writing class.
So I quickly concluded that Tanenbaum must have hired a ghost to churn this one out. Then I learned from the Internet, to my horror, that all the wit and pizzazz of the earlier books had been due to the REAL writer, Michael Gruber, who had a parting of the ways with the fake writer, whose only claim to fame is that his name is in fact Robert Tanenbaum. He may be a decent lawyer, I don't know, but he is no writer. So the problem is not that Tanenbaum HIRED a ghost, it's that the real writer of the old Tanenbaums finally came to his senses and struck out on his own.
Wow. I feel betrayed. This is SO Milli Vanilli. Don't buy this book unless you are teaching a class in creative writing and ethics and need an example of how NOT to do things. Otherwise, just figure that Butch and Marlene and Lucy and Zak and Giancarlo and Guma and all the other wonderful, complex, brilliant characters died on 9/11. Mourn their loss, and then start reading Gruber's books.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Boring, boring, boring, Aug 27 2004
By Stewart - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Hoax (Hardcover)
I have read every single Butch & Marlene novel and always eagerly await the release of the next chapter in their saga. Alas, this may be their final chapter for me. Gone are the brilliantly drawn and interesting characters, the sarcastic banter, the exciting twists and turns, leaving pages of needless detail and outlandish resolutions. After reading about Lucy and the cliff I closed my book and have yet to reopen it. Please, Mr. Tanenbaum, pay Michael Gruber whatever you have to and bring him back. Your new co-author can write, but he can't write Butch and Marlene as we all know and love them!
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