Payback

June 8, 2020
Bestseller Carcaterra’s rambunctious sequel to 2019’s Tin Badges finds former NYPD cop Tank Rizzo enjoying the good life. He lives in a Greenwich Village brownstone he inherited mortgage-free from his parents, and eats most of his meals down the street at the restaurant owned by his old friend Carmine Tramonti, a former mobster, whose daughter, Connie, is his one and only love. Tank also looks after his 15-year-old nephew, Chris Rizzo, whose parents recently died in a car accident, and his old police partner Frank “Pearl” Monroe, who was wounded in their last case for the NYPD two years earlier. Each of them now needs Tank’s help. Chris believes a shady investment firm was behind his parents’ deaths, and Pearl wants justice for convicted murderer Randy Jenkins. Randy went to prison 17 years earlier after Det. Eddie Kenwood, a dirty cop, persuaded him to confess to a crime he didn’t commit. The two cases intertwine in an action-filled plot spiced with gangster lore and New York history. Those who like their cop novels to take retribution to wild and wicked extremes will have fun. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, William Morris Endeavor.

July 15, 2020
A White ex-cop goes after his brother's killers while attempting to free a Black man put in jail by a crooked cop. Tank Rizzo is a New York cop on unwanted retirement thanks to an assailant's bullet. He's taken the time to put together what he calls his "team": his teenage nephew, Chris, living with him after losing his parents in a suspicious car crash; his girlfriend, Connie Tramonti; his ex-partner, Frank "Pearl" Monroe, who uses a wheelchair after having been shot at the same time as Tank; Connie's restaurateur father, Carmine Tramonti, a retired mobster; and various other contacts on both sides of the law. Prompted by what his nephew is able to dig up on the internet, Tank comes to believe that the accounting firm his late brother worked for arranged his death and sets out to prove it. As if a white-shoe firm willing to stoop to murder isn't enough of an opponent, Tank also goes after a retired White police detective whose unsurpassed number of closed murder cases had to do with his willingness to pressure young Black men into confessing to crimes they didn't commit. There's something appealing about the idea of a team of cops, feds, lawbreakers, and assorted colorful characters out to use any means they can to secure justice--but that's more the stuff of Jack Reacher-type fantasy than the social realism that characterizes this book. Too often it reads like a cartoon version of what Richard Price has achieved in novels like Clockers and Freedomland. Despite the short, punchy chapters, the book feels padded, full of inflated writing along the lines of "I was a man of action and violence standing in a sun-drenched courtyard seeking solace and wisdom from a man of peace and love." And in too many cases the relationships between characters seem prefab instead of developing as we read. Enjoy the revenge but don't expect lasting pleasure.

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