Midnight Alley

February 6, 2012
Corwin’s second police thriller featuring LAPD Det. Ash Levine doesn’t live up to the promise of its predecessor, 2010’s Kind of Blue. Levine is trying to reconnect with his wife, Robin, after a painful separation, but their planned weekend getaway to Santa Barbara falls through after Levine’s boss asks him to handle a major case. Raymond Pinkney, the son of a councilman who’s a vehement critic of the police, has been gunned down in an alley, and the brass would like to rely on Levine’s role as a lead member of the Felony Special Unit to demonstrate that they’re sparing no efforts to close the case. The chapters dealing with the homicide inquiry alternate with those concerning a vicious ex-con named Mullin, who accepts an offer for $25,000 to take out a cop. Smooth prose compensates in part for characters who act improbably, such as a defense lawyer claiming he can succeed at a trial by never using the word shooting. Author tour.

Starred review from February 15, 2012
Recommend this superb novel to fans of crime thrillers and police procedurals. One can read it as a haunting take on The Maltese Falcon, with everyone frantically pursuing an ancient treasure while the bodies pile up, or as a look at the life of a thoughtful policeman, with the gems in the small moments: when he's condescended to by an academic, or when a chill runs through him when he recalls his new wife introduced him to her law partners as being in law enforcement so she wouldn't have to say he's a cop. Hero Asher Levine is a former Israeli paratrooper who joined the LAPD for cloudy reasonsthere's an allusion to the Torah injunction to heal the world. But author and cop aren't in love with introspection. It doesn't get in the way of vividly described chases, fights, arguments with killers and bosses, and enough wild stuff to make this a fast-paced read suitable for airplane or beach. The bonus is that tingle in the spine that comes when one turns the last page.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)