Rizzo's Fire

January 3, 2011
Manfredo's prosaic second novel featuring Brooklyn Det. Sgt. Joe Rizzo (after Rizzo's War) gets off to a slow start. Rizzo, a battle-hardened veteran nearing retirement with a zen approach to his work ("It's not right, it's not wrong. It just is"), has a new detective partner, Priscilla Jackson, a lesbian African-American. Many chapters of routine police work and soap opera (Jackson's estranged from her mother, who cut her off over her sexual preference, while one of Rizzo's daughters wants to join the force against his wishes) pass before the pair start investigating the strangling homicide of ex-shoe clerk Robert Lauria. Lauria's death may be connected with a similar killing of a Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, though oddly the police don't run the NYPD computer to check for similar murders. A less than gripping whodunit plot doesn't help. Fans of contemporary New York City crime fiction will find Reggie Nadelson's Artie Cohen series (Blood Count, etc.) more realistic.

Starred review from January 15, 2011

In the gripping sequel to Rizzo's War (2009), maverick Detective Sergeant Joe Rizzo investigates the murder of a man too unimportant to murder.

Robert Lauria was the ultimate loner. In a bare-bones apartment he'd lived a nondescript life, seldom venturing out, never having visitors. When he was found dead after 13 days, his landlady delivered a predictable epitaph: "Always paid his rent early, in cash." Too bad some fix-hungry junkie had happened to select the apartment of poor, sad "Mr. Cellophane," noticed for once and strangled because of it. At least that's the quite sensible view of the first responders, the uniforms who answered the 911 call—but not Joe, the thorn in his bosses' side, the Talleyrand of police-department politics, the cool game-changer with the pragmatist's mantra: "There is no right. There is no wrong. There just is." Savvy Joe spots the gold wristwatch on the victim's nightstand. It hasn't been heisted, he points out to Detective Priscilla Jackson, the new partner who's almost as smart as he is. They agree that it may have been a rush to judgment to call this an opportunistic break-in. So begins the strange and gnarly process—part deductive brilliance, mostly hardscrabble police work—that eventually ties the man of no importance to a Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, also murdered.

Bar none, Joe Rizzo is the most authentic cop in contemporary crime fiction.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2011

Set against the colorful backdrop of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, the second installment of Manfredo's series (after Rizzo's War) follows Det. Joe Rizzo and his new partner, Priscilla Jackson, on their first assignment together. When a local recluse is found murdered in his kitchen, the case appears to be an ordinary robbery gone wrong. As the investigation unfolds, both detectives begin to realize that their homicide could be tied to the recent killing of a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. In addition to the murder investigation, Rizzo must deal with the realities of his daughter joining the police force and his own realization of what it means to be a cop. VERDICT Heavy on dialog and lacking in energy, this police procedural leaves the reader wanting. The relationship between Jackson and Rizzo feels forced, and their constant banter is distracting. With the surplus of detective mysteries available, pass on this purchase. [Library marketing.]--Amy Nolan, St. Joseph P.L., MI

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2011
In Manhattan, the murder of an acclaimed playwright will make some NYPD detective a media darling. But in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Detective Joe Rizzo has the usual fare: a mugger who preys on the elderly, a serial flasher, and the loser in a fistfight, who drunkenly seeks revenge with a hunting rifle. But then Bensonhurst has its own murder, the 62nd Precincts first in two years. The victim is an unemployed shoe salesman, and Rizzo and his new partner get the case. Their investigation soon produces a link between the two murders, and Rizzo gets caught up in the possibility of beating Manhattan to an arrest. Rizzos life and work are so compelling that readers will be surprised that the books linchpin, the shoe salesmans murder, occurs almost halfway through it. Authenticity is the cornerstone of Manfredos work (Rizzos War, 2009), whether in his portrait of Brooklyn or his depiction of the murky and morally ambivalent world of the NYPD, which Rizzo desperately wants to keep his youngest daughter from joining. Fans of gritty procedurals will love this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)