From Publishers Weekly
Readers who think "Maltese Falcon" early on in Tanenbaum's latest thriller featuring 1970s Manhattan assistant DA Butch Karp (last seen in Material Witness ) won't be alone. As Karp and his fellow prosecutors work a rash of brutal crimes revolving around a fable jewel-encrusted icon, he and his ADA wife, Marlene Ciampi, acknowledge the parallels to Spade's case and even banter in Bogart/Lorre voices--a self-conscious moment that sounds the only false note in this otherwise seamlessly intricate novel. A hit on a Turkish diplomat launches the brisk plot, which soon finds Karp pitted against colleagues as he begins to doubt the guilt of the accused, an Armenian supposedly avenging Turkish atrocities of decades past. Playing hardball bureau politics, Karp, Ciampi and other series folk tie in parallel cases involving art fraud in high and mafia circles, and rape/homicide in a biker gang. The investigation offers bracing doses of Armenian lore and art-scam lowdown, as well as tough street action nicely balanced by smart courtroom drama in a subplot in which Karp tries an aging black mugger for murder. Though former Manhattan ADA Tanenbaum moved to Beverly Hills long ago, his New York is still as fresh as today's police blotter--and for any crime fan to miss it would constitute felonious neglect.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
During World War I, 1.5 million Armenians were annihilated by the Turks. Turkey has never acknowledged this genocide, and history lightly dances around it. Herein lies the premise of Justice Denied. The tale begins with the assassination of a Turkish diplomat-apparently committed by Armenian terrorists-and the prompt arrest of a suspect. Enter Butch Karp, assistant district attorney and head of the homicide bureau. Karp and wife Marlene, also an assistant D.A., make a most dynamic duo. Among the individual threads: she goes to a reception and receives a lecture on art theft; he discovers a million dollars in a safe deposit box; he gets a lesson on Eastern European history and the buying and selling of national treasures. These threads are tightly woven together into a highly satisfying tale ultimately related to the novel's opening events. Larger public libraries may want more than one copy.
--Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
