LONDONGRAD

On the wilder fringes of New York, where planes thunder low over the Jamaica wetlands, a child's swing turns gently in the breeze, on it, the multilated body of a beautiful girl bound in a glistering shroud of silver duct tape. At first, it seems to be a random killing, but death is stalking those close to Artie Cohen and all too soon he finds himself stumbling into tragedy and terror. The cynical corruption of the new cold war stretches from the dazzling clubs of Russian Brooklyn, to 'Londongrad' - where hundreds of thousands of Russian immigrants, rich and poor, elegant and ruthless, have created a shimmering, seething, sqaulid underworld in the heart of the British capital, then on to Putin's Moscow where corruption and business still stroll hand in hand and human life is worth only what someone is willing to pay. (Read More)

 

The Archipelago Trilogy

DISTURBED EARTH

Although this was the fourth book in the series, it was with Disturbed Earth that Artie really gets a sense of the city he loves. As he realizes that New York is an archipelago, a city state floating on water, more than ever, he resolves that this is where he belongs, that this is where what family he has are, and here is the community of cops and friends that matters most of all. Disturbed Earth takes place in the wake of 9/11, when the city feels nothing is in place, that the tectonic plates have shift, and people think only about the hole in the middle of the city and the gap in the skyline. Like missing teeth, everyone says.
A child’s clothes turns up on a stretch of waste ground near Coney Island, and because the jogger who finds them is Russian, Artie is called in on the case. (Read More)

 

RED HOOK

At the beginning of RED HOOK, Artie seems to have recovered from the horrors of finding the truth about his nephew Billy.  As the book opens, he is celebrating his marriage to Maxine Crabbe at the party given by Tolya Sverdloff at his loft in the meat packing district. But Artie is called away to Red Hook where a body has been found.
Sid McKay, a famous retired journalist has found a body on the waterfront near his loft. He has called Artie, and while Artie tries to find out what’s going on, Sid himself is murdered. There follows the unraveling of too many lives. Caught up in this is Valentina Sverdloff, Tolya’s beloved daughter. Before the end of the book, there will be more murders and more revelations some about the lies journalists tell in covering up stories, some about Sid McKay’s strange past. (Read More)

FRESH KILLS

In Fresh Kills, Artie has to take custody of Billy Farone, his nephew who was sent to a facility in Florida for killing a man (in Disturbed Earth). Billy comes home for two weeks to stay with Artie and in the course of this time, Artie finds himself with a case on Staten Island. This is the most suburban, oddest of all the New York boroughs, a place where Tony Soprano like Mafiosi have their mansions, where new immigrants look for small bungalows to settle down in and where the huge garbage dump, Fresh Kills, sends up clouds of methane gas.
And in the midst of it all, as Artie tries to adjust to married life with Maxine Crabbe and her daughters, Lily Hanes shows up.
Here Artie must come to terms with the truth about Billy, and about himself.