Overview
Police Commander Larry Cole returns in his most dangerous case to date. the investigation of the murders of two hit-men leads Cole to an old colleague, FBI Special Agent Reggie Stanton. Cole had known Stanton when he was a Chicago cop accused of vigilante knife-murders on Chicago's South Side. Now the murders of the two assassins bear the same M.O. as those long-ago cases.
Police Commander Larry Cole returns in his most dangerous case to date. The investigation of the murders of two hit-men leads Cole to an old colleague, FBI Special Agent Reggie Stanton, and a beautiful but bloodthirsty femme fatale nicknamed "Gunslinger." Ads in USA Today. HC: Forge.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"Is sure to leave your ears ringing."—Chicago Sun-Times"Holton races through his feverish tale like Scheherazade on speed."—Kirkus Reviews
"Gut-wrenching realism."—William J. Caunitz, New York Times bestselling author of One Police Plaza
Wes Lukowsky
Two hit men employed by mobster "Tuxedo Tony" DeLisa are murdered and dumped in front of their employer's mansion. Chicago police commander Larry Cole suspects that the killings are the work of Reggie Stanton, a bodyguard-vigilante hired by Senator Harvey Banks, whose Senate committee is investigating DeLisa. Toss in subplots focusing on DeLisa's patricidal daughter and Stanton's surrogate parents being hired by DeLisa to assassinate Senator Banks, and one has a very busy thriller. Holton, a 27-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, knows the cop jargon and the cop life very well; he can also transfer it to the page. And as always, when the crime is set in Chicago, the city becomes a vibrant primary character. But Holton's fifth effort is also his weakest. Complexity in a plot is admirable, but there are so many subplots and characters here that confusion reigns. Despite this novel's powerful verisimilitude, one must consider it a minor misstep in the early stages of what promises to be a brilliant career.Kirkus Reviews
Before Senator Harvey Banks can convene a blue-ribbon committee that could give Antonio DeLisa some anxious moments, Tuxedo Tony plans to have him taken for a ride. But his first attempt backfires when the senator's bodyguard, FBI agent Reggie Stanton, sends Tony's designated drivers home dead with an attached note: "The next time this will be you, DeLisa." Enraged, Tony imports father-and-son assassins Karl and Ernest Steiger to finish the job. The basic story is as simple as that, except that (1) Tony's traumatized daughter Rachel, frantic to escape from her father, wishes the note would hurry up and come true; (2) Rachel's current minder is really undercover cop Judy Daniels, self-styled Mistress of Disguise/High Priestess of Mayhem; (3) Judy's latest victim, maniacal killer Armand Hagar, is now on Tony's payroll; (4) Stanton, an ex-cop implicated in a couple of eerily similar executions 15 years ago, is willing to go up against anybody—DeLisa's men, the Chicago blues, his Bureau chief—to bring down Tony; and (5) Stanton is no stranger to the Steiger family. Did we mention that Commander Larry Cole (Windy City, 1995) is in on the shenanigans, too, even though he doesn't get to double-cross anybody?Except for an unnecessary detour back to 1979 to show Stanton acquiring his prowess with the "Whistling Dagger of Death," Holton races through his feverish tale like Scheherazade on speed; the result is wildly, powerfully pulpy. Shove over, William Caunitz.