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.
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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 ZvirinCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
