We met Nick
Ryan, troubleshooter for the New York Police Department, in Sleepless City
(Blackstone, July 2023). Now Nick is back, using his lightning-fast reflexes
and sharp wits to delve into secrets thought long forgotten and calling in his
far-flung network of specialists on both sides of the law for assistance, while
pining for the mother of his daughter who is now married to another man. Blind
to Midnight by Reed Farrel Coleman was released on 13 August 2024.
Nick‘s latest
task is a puzzler: find the killer of the only man known to have been murdered
in New York City outside the tragedy of the World Towers attack on 11 September
2001. Why Nick’s handlers were preoccupied with what appeared to be a subway
mugging gone wrong more than 20 years ago was not disclosed to him.
Nick had
barely collected the case file and begun to review it when he learned his
father’s closest friend and his wife had been killed in their home. Tony
DeAngelo had been Nick’s honorary uncle, a constant presence in his life, and
Nick was devastated. He pulled strings to visit the scene, where he was struck
by the markers of a professional hit. Tony was well liked by everyone around
him and his doing anything that would have incurred the attention of a killer
for hire was unimaginable. Nick was also warned off the case by the assigned
detectives but of course that did not stop him.
In the course
of his multiple investigations, Ryan pulled in characters from the first book:
research wizard Lenny still grieving hard for his family, former British agent
now bartender Mack, and a nameless international assassin he only knows via a
distorted telephone voice, then tapped a few new ones. In fact this book is so
character dense it could use one of those old-fashioned lists of names at the
front of the book.
As usual
Coleman has turned out an incisive and polished piece of writing. Literate and
evocative with slickly choreographed action sequences and a jaw-dropping final
body count. And Coleman does love his cars. It seems a shame that after
describing their many excellent features, Nick promptly trashes them in a
shootout conducted at top speed or something similar. An excellent entry in a
very good new series. I am looking forward to the next one.
· Publisher: Blackstone
Publishing, Inc.; Unabridged edition (August 13, 2024)
· Language: English
· Hardcover: 304 pages
· ISBN-10: 887482390J
· ISBN-13: 979-8874823900
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3YF9mWM
Make sure you read Aubrey’s review of the previous book, Sleepless City.
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
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