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Overview
The Homicide Department is upside down—Richard Christie is in the hospital, Artie Dolan is headed away on vacation, John Potocki’s life is falling apart, and Colleen Greer is so worried about her boss’s health, she can hardly think. A young boy in Pittsburgh’s North Side neighborhood dies of a suspicious overdose. The Narcotics police are working on tips and they draft Colleen and Potocki to help them. In this same neighborhood, four young kids have been abandoned and are living on their own. The Philips kids, brainy in school, are reluctant to compromise themselves. But they need cash. Connecting these people and their stories is Nick Banks, just out of prison and working off a debt to an old acquaintance involved in the drug trade. Nick is a charmer, a gentle fellow who’s had a lot of trouble in his life. One day he gives free food to the Philips kids, little guessing how connected their lives are about to become.
Kathleen George’s latest work pushes the edge—a spectacularly original crime novel.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Four extraordinary and resilient youngsters lift George's enjoyable fourth police procedural to feature Pittsburgh homicide chief Richard Christie and his team (after 2007's Afterimage). On loan to another department, detectives Colleen Greer and John Potocki pursue a narcotics investigation that meshes with a drug-related shooting. Meanwhile, the four Philips children-Meg, 13; Joel, 11; Laurie, 10; and Susannah, seven-are trying to cope with the desertion of their stepmother, who had told Meg to wait a couple of days before seeking foster care. Instead, they set about making do with limited resources but unlimited resolve. When Joel runs across a dead man and a wounded man in an abandoned house, the four decide to help the wounded man avoid the law and the drug dealer on his trail. George doesn't neglect the police work as Greer and Potocki effectively chase down clues, but it's the kids who are heroic in a world where few adults can be trusted. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
Pittsburgh homicide detectives Colleen Greer and John Potocki (Afterimage) are on loan to the Narcotics Department to help finalize a roundup of drug dealers. At the same time, a stepmother abandons her four children, telling them to seek help from Family Services. Instead, they struggle to cope on their own until they find a corpse and a gravely injured man in an abandoned building and decide to protect him from the law and a pursuing drug pusher. VERDICT George's fourth crime novel is a truly original tale featuring four amazing youngsters: they are resilient, resourceful, and responsible. This very modern police procedural will not be easily forgotten.
—Jo Ann Vicarel