SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, by Richard Hawke

1/series. Semi-noir, grabs you from page one! Skillful plotting and fascinating characters make this debut novel an easy read. The Thanksgiving Macy's Parade is booming along Central Park when a gunman opens fire. Fritz Malone, PI, wandering back home with a bag of fresh bagels, gives chase into Central Park and, using a dead cop's gun, shoots the gunman. In the shoulder. Only an hour later, Malone - now in police custody - discovers the gunman is dead. But shoulder wounds don't kill...what's going on? Click below for more no-spoiler review...
Malone, whose father was once Police Commissioner, has a checkered history with the NYPD and its present Commissioner, who feeds bits of info but not the whole story. The city - in particular the ambitious, media-hungry mayor - is being blackmailed by a psycho named Nightmare, and the initial atrocity gives way to Malone being sucked into delivering a million-dollar payodd. In cash. At the Cloisters, a popular museum, on a weekend afternoon. The mayor, the publicity hound of epic proportions, is never far away. Nuns get into the act. A mayorial aide is kidnapped. Everything keeps going to hell as Malone tries to figure it out. A compelling ride through Manhattan, with a startling wind-up. It's a 4.
Find the author at www.rhawke.com
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