3 QUARTERS

Rating:
Summary: DENIS IS DEFINITELY NOT PETE
Review: Denis Hamill writes excellent New York scenery and gives his supporting characters plenty of juice. Bobby Emmet is an effective protagonist, but suffers from the "Superman Syndrome": the toughest hombre on the block, the last honest cop in the corrupt city, the man every woman wants (including his ex-wife...give me a break). Denis, give this guy a handicap, get him hooked on some painkillers or something. Fast paced, but the plot has holes in it you could fit Dennis Franz through. I haven't read "Throwing 7's" yet, but I will. I think Denis Hamill's best stuff is yet to come.

Rating:
Summary: Morbidly fascinating...
Review: From the gruesome opening to the final chapter, I was shocked at the possibility that this corrupt police force could ever actually exist... my cop friend said "reality sucks, eh?" Oh my, the things that do go on! This is not a read for the "faint-at-heart"! However, I read it in one sitting as I couldn't stand not knowing who was behind all the corruption.

Rating:
Summary: Morbidly fascinating...
Review: From the gruesome opening to the final chapter, I was shocked at the possibility that this corrupt police force could ever actually exist... my cop friend said "reality sucks, eh?" Oh my, the things that do go on! This is not a read for the "faint-at-heart"! However, I read it in one sitting as I couldn't stand not knowing who was behind all the corruption.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: The storyline for this novel has potential, however, I wasn't thrilled by the way it was delivered. The dialogue contains cliches and "clever" one-liners - I felt that the basic story was intriguing enough to deserve better dialogue. The revelation of the originator of the three-quarters scam was utterly predictable, as were many of the plot twists. Bobby's daughter, Maggie, was a sweet addition, but completely unbelievable as an adolescent computer hacker. No one could be that intuitive and well-adjusted. It was somewhat difficult to keep track of the ancillary characters thrown in here and there, for what seemed to be an effort to lend depth to the pension scam. These underdeveloped characters only succeeded in providing additional opportunity for sometimes tiresome vulgarity. It's unfortunate that the predictable plot and weak dialogue tarnished what could have been a fun mystery novel.

Rating:
Summary: Good Cop, Bad Cop
Review: There are so many bad cops in this novel that you begin to wonder if the entire NYPD is corrupt. The book opens with a grizzly scene when Dr. Hector Perez awakens to find himself next to a dead prostitute clutching three 1991 quarters. He quickly eradicates any evidence of his presence and goes back home to his pregnant wife.

Next, we visit Bobby Emmett in the Wallkill State Correction Facility. Bobby is an ex-cop who was imprisoned for the murder of his girl friend, Dorothea; however a body was never found, and Bobby was obviously framed. Prison is not a good place for an ex-cop, and he is taunted, threatened and assaulted with constant banging on the steel bars. Bobby is visited by a sleazy lawyer, Izzy Gleason, who is just getting off a one-year bar association ethics committee suspension, and wants to restore his reputation by re-trying Bobby's case.

When Bobby starts to investigate his case, he finds that evidence was suppressed and there was a conspiracy among police and lawyers who are involved in a big-time scam to approve three-quarter pensions for corrupt cops. He is convinced that Dorothea is still alive, and his efforts to locate her and uncover the scam place him in constant peril.

The dialogue is gritty and vulgar, and the level of violence and corruption is frightening. The line between the good guys and the bad guys is blurred, and lives are cheap and quickly extinguished if they interfere with the ambitions of the corrupt cops. The plot is riveting, and the tension of not knowing who Bobby's real allies are keeps you turning pages rapidly.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book has a good idea at the core of it, but the characters are shallowly drawn and the writing is incredibly amateurish. In the hands of another writer and/or editor, this could have been a pretty good thriller. As it is, it is disappointing all round.