The Con Man's Daughter

Starred review from September 8, 2003
NYPD vet Dee is known for the authenticity of his New York City police procedurals (14 Peck Slip; Bronx Angel; etc.), and his new stand-alone thriller is no exception. Abandoning past NYPD heroes Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory, Dee introduces ex-cop, ex-prize-fighter Eddie "God help me... I love a brawl" Dunn. After being kicked out of the NYPD along with partner Paulie "the Priest" Caruso, Eddie spends the next decade as a courier for Russian gangster Anatoly Lukin. Though retired now, Eddie still knows the secrets of the Russian mob, so when his 35-year-old daughter, Kate, is kidnapped, he figures the Brighton Beach boys are behind the snatch. "The word hardened didn't do these guys justice. Decades of frigid weather, deprivation, and sanctioned cruelty had forced them to develop a level of toughness and cunning beyond anyone's ability to understand." All signs point to crime lord Yuri Borodenko, so Eddie responds by firebombing Yuri's Rolls Royce (with one of the mobster's minions in the front seat). Borodenko retaliates by bouncing Paulie Caruso's severed head off Eddie's front door. Then things get really ugly. Along with gritty realism, Dee gives the reader plenty of useful criminal information: how to set up a pump-and-dump Wall Street scheme, hijack a car, hire a Hasidic Jew to smuggle Ecstasy, rip off Medicare, launder money and spot a two-way mirror, for starters. Eddie eventually bulls his way through the mob and rescues his daughter, but not before surviving a number of horrendous beatings and a couple of grenade attacks. Down and dirty crime fiction doesn't get any better than this. (Nov. 12)Forecast:Dee's many fans eagerly await his every effort, and booksellers who broaden this fan base by handselling will be rewarded.

Starred review from October 15, 2003
In a departure from his police procedural series (Bronx Angel; Nightbird), Dee explores New York City's gritty underbelly from another perspective. Eddie Dunne, a disgraced former NYPD cop and retired fixer for a Russian mobster, has spent the last several years getting sober and washing his hands of his sins. He's content to babysit and play ponies with his six-year-old granddaughter, but that contentment is shattered when his daughter, Kate, is kidnapped. Convinced that his past has come to haunt him, Eddie must put his rusty street smarts to work and do anything and everything to get Kate back. While tussling with his own skeletons, he navigates the remnants of the Italian mob, the more vicious, up-and-coming Russian mafia, the FBI, and the locals, all of whom want a piece of him. Former lieutenant in the NYPD Organized Crime Control Bureau, Dee proves a sure hand when depicting the rough life of cops and criminals-and especially when creating Eddie Dunne, an amalgam of good and bad. At times graphic and gripping, and then bittersweet, Dee's latest is another solid offering. Recommended for all public libraries.-Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI

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