Dead Cat Bounce

June 26, 2006
Tough guy Stoney, his business partner, "Fat Tommy" Rosselli, and their young associate, Tuco, are back in this fine follow-up to Green's hard-boiled debut, Shooting Dr. Jack
(2002). Stoney's been living in an apartment in New York City's East Village since his wife, Donna, kicked him out of the house, and his AA meetings provide structure but no comfort when he's missing his family. A rare rendezvous with his 17-year-old daughter, Marisa, puts him on the trail of a creepy Mr. Prior, whom Marisa describes as her mother's suitor. But when Stoney starts nosing around, he finds that Prior is actually stalking Marisa, who has been secretly working at a strip club. As Stoney probes Prior's shady affairs and apparently blank past, the dead bodies start piling up. Stoney sets up a wonderfully convoluted sting to take down the canny criminal who threatens his daughter. Green's well-drawn characters and nimble plot lift this above the common run of mysteries.

July 1, 2006
When Stoney stops drinking, stops doing drugs, and joins AA, his wife, unable to live with this completely changed man, throws him out, and he moves to Manhattan. A year later, Stoney's 17-year-old daughter visits and tells him that her mother is seeing a very wealthy but creepy man named Prior. Stoney, with the help of his business partner Fat Tommy and a street punk named Tuco, investigate Prior's background only to find that his information has been erased from most databases. Dealing with a man whose past has been wiped out should not be too difficult for three hard cases like Stoney and company, first introduced in "Shooting Dr. Jack", but things start to go wrong almost immediately. Writing in Elmore Leonard -like street voice and depicting, in the style of Andrew Vachss, finely drawn characters who happen to be on the other side of the law, Green has the beginning of a great new series. If you like slightly offbeat mysteries with a dollop of violence, this one is for you. Green lives in Emerson, NJ.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2006
Manhattan scam-artist Stoney managed to quit drinking but not before his wife, Donna, quit him. It's been a while since he has talked to his two children. His closest confidantes are his AA sponsor, Benny, and a pair of dubious professional associates, Tommy "Bagadonuts" Rosselli and Tuco, a rough-around-the-edges young man whom Tommy rescued from the streets. As the novel opens, Stoney's 17-year-old daughter, Marisa, calls him in a panic over Charles David Prior, an eccentric millionaire whom she claims is romantically involved with her mother. With the help of Tuco and a shrewd private investigator, Stoney discovers a trio of disturbing truths: Marisa has been dancing at a local strip club, working for an escort service, and she, not her mother, is the object of Prior's unwanted advances. Stoney's sponsor, Benny, isn't the least bit surprised by Marisa's predicament: "You and your wife have been doing the addict-co-dependent mambo ever since you got married," he says. Furious at his daughter and fearful harm will come her way, Stoney and his colleagues hatch a deliciously twisted scheme to give Prior his due. Fans of Elmore Leonard are sure to enjoy Green (" Shooting Dr. Jack," 2001), who delivers crisp prose and a collection of flawed characters navigating the rocky road to redemption.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)