Tracking Time

From Barnes & Noble

When a young doctor goes for his daily run in New York City's Central Park and doesn't come back, NYPD detective April Woo is convinced that he's still alive. Trusting her usually solid instincts, she goes outside her jurisdiction and orders a massive search using the city's best K-9 tracking unit. But it isn't until a witness in the case is brutally murdered that April's hunch is taken seriously -- by her superiors, by the mayor and by the already frenzied press. Only now, it just might be too late to beat the clock and stop an out-of-control killer on the most bizarre and disturbing crime spree the city has ever seen.

Toby Bromberg

With a plot as real and frightening as today’s headlines, nail-biting suspense, and palpable tension, Tracking Time is a classic page-turner. As always, storylines about April’s relationship with her lover, Det. Mike Sanchez, her old-style Chinese parents, and the politics of her professional life add dimension and depth to a riveting mystery.
— Romantic Times

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Six books into Glass's April Woo series (Stealing Time; Judging Time; etc.), the NYPD detective remains one of the more promising yet frustrating characters in crime fiction. Woo is caught between three cultures--her native Chinese, her adopted American and that dictated by the Job. Woo lives at home with her parents, tethered by Chinese morality and lifestyle, yet she is one of the most hard-driving, career-minded detectives on the force. Despite such unusual qualities, she is not particularly companionable. In her latest outing, she's cold and standoffish, stranded in a so-so plot in which she just barely takes center stage. Woo is on the hunt for a missing psychiatrist, Maslow Atkins, who disappears in Central Park during an evening jog. Chief among the suspects is Allegra Caldera, one of Atkins's patients, who may be stalking him. Unknown to Woo, Allegra is also the victim of foul play, kidnapped by the same hoods who snagged Atkins. Together, they are imprisoned in a tiny cave in Central Park, not quite dead but badly beaten. Their tormentors are two spoiled, thrill-seeking teens, David Owen and Brandy Fabman, products of privileged Manhattan backgrounds. Woo struggles through the case, worrying about her minor missteps, fretting about how she's perceived by the higher-ups, wringing her hands over her failings as a daughter and lover. The search ends predictably and without much punch, yet the strength of Glass's story lies in her cultivation of themes--broken families, culture clash, ambition and pride--as well as her strong portrayals of secondary characters. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Kirkus Reviews

"Chinese silences are full of meaning," thinks Detective Lieutenant Mike Sanchez. Actually, it's a Chinese-American silence that worries him, the one emanating from his ladylove, Detective Sergeant April Woo. Is she truly ready to forgive him for (a) his mild peccadillo involving a girl with long, tan legs, and (b) his pulling rank in the case of Dr. Maslow Atkins, who has disappeared into the leafy depths of New York's Central Park? April, recalling how often Skinny Dragon, her mother, has advised that too much happiness is not good for a man, keeps her own counsel. Besides, she has a preoccupation of her own. Unlike almost everyone else, she's convinced Atkins is still alive, despite the heavy weight of hours now arguing against it. Desperate to find him before it's too late, she calls on an old ally: Peaches, undisputed star of the K-9 corps. At the same time, she works on a different, non-olfactory, lead, though she alone believes it will prove productive. Brandy and David, a couple of rich private schoolkids, are sufficiently bratty to be immensely annoying, but (leapin' Leopold and Loeb!) murderous? No way, conventional wisdom insists. So while Mike does some obligatory groveling, Peaches sniffs around the park and April sniffs around the suspects. It all comes together in a suspenseful climax that tingles and untangles most satisfactorily.