October 16, 2006
Edgar-winner Rozan (Absent Friends
) draws on her experience as a professional architect in this complex thriller that focuses on New York City's construction and development business. Ann Montgomery, an officer in the New York Department of Investigation, shows up on former partner Joe Cole's doorstep with a file containing evidence pointing to a murder at a Mott Haven construction site. She needs Joe's help, but he's fresh off a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence connected to an earlier DOI investigation and wants nothing to do with the case. Meanwhile, the mayor of New York, Charlie Barr, is having problems with the press and political opponents who are questioning his dealings with big-time developer Walter Glybenhall, the mayor's pal and chief financial contributor. This is a New York story, steeped in political intrigue, ripe with descriptions of the city and its history. The payoff will be particularly rewarding for readers interested in big machines, both the kind that move earth and those behind political parties.
November 15, 2006
Joe, a former Building Department inspector, has been unfairly implicated in a behind-the-scenes payoff that resulted in a little girl's death. While in prison, he loses his job, his family, and his trust. With this opening, Edgar Award winner Rozan ("Absent Friends") takes us into the steamy, corrupt world of city politics, race relations, and mob connections. Unfortunately, while the premise is good, Rozan never makes it come together into an exciting story and fails to give readers characters with whom they can empathize. Joe and his former partner, Ann, are not very likeable, and the other characters come across as stereotypical. The short chapters, multiple viewpoints, and choppy story lines also make this book hard to follow, unlike Rozan's last standalone novel, "Absent Friends", whose characters you could really feel for and whose story line gave you something to think about. Recommended for large public libraries only. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 9/1/06.]Marianne Fitzgerald, Annapolis, MD
Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 1, 2006
Rozan (" Absent Friends," 2004) is a highly decorated mystery writer--she's won the Shamus, Edgar, and McAvity, among other awards. But it is her experience as a New York architect that provides the expertise behind this compelling, if somewhat convoluted, stand-alone tale of corruption in Manhattan's construction industry. In the novel's early pages, Rozan spins a web of seemingly interconnected characters and events, then gradually (perhaps, too gradually) untangles them. There's freshly paroled Joe Cole, wrongfully imprisoned after a child's death near a construction site; his former partner, Ann Montgomery, fueled by a toxic combination of ambition and wrath; and a host of politicians and community leaders with prickly personalities and dubious pasts. When a series of accidents, one fatal, takes place on a building site in the Bronx, Joe temporarily abandons his new, quiet life (and the garden that has become his salvation) to help Ann right some age-old wrongs. From the mean streets of Harlem to the chilly corridors of City Hall, Rozan vividly evokes New York City in all its sound and fury.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)