Gus Murphy was looking forward to retirement after a distinguished career as a Long Island policeman, but when his son dropped dead of an undiagnosed heart defect during a pickup basketball game, Gus’s life all but ended, too.
That‘s when Tommy Delcamino, a small-time crook Gus used to arrest, shows up looking for help. Tommy’s son is dead, too, gunned down in a mysterious murder the Suffolk County police show little interest in solving.
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"Where It Hurts" By Reed Farrel Coleman (G.P. Putnam‘s Sons) |
At first, Gus wants no part of it and sends Tommy packing. But Gus understands Tommy‘s pain. So reluctantly, he finally agrees to poke into it.
As he digs into a case, Gus gradually uncovers a web of drug dealing and corruption that makes him, and many of the people who know about it, murder targets. For Gus, the case turns into a cause, and in it, he finds a reason to go on living.
That is the premise of “Where It Hurts,” the beginning of a new series by Reed Farrel Coleman. As the author of the Moe Prager detective series and several fine stand-alone crime novels, Coleman has long been one of the best crime novelists in the business. “Where It Hurts” is a superb detective novel in the Raymond Chandler tradition, featuring fine prose, a suspenseful yarn and a compelling main character who will leave readers hungering for the next installment. (AP)
