Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In books such as Darwin's Blade, Carrion Comfort and Hyperion, Simmons has shown a chameleon talent for mastering the colors and shadings of the horror, suspense and science-fiction genres. He adds one more tone to his palette with this terse hardboiled crime thriller, set in an upstate New York town bathed in Conradian darkness. When ex-PI Joe Kurtz emerges from Attica after an 11-year-stretch, he is still being sought by the brother of a man he iced for murdering his partner, as well as by disciples of a Black Muslim group whose leader he killed in stir. Not the most obedient parolee, Joe clandestinely resumes detective work, tracing a vanished mob accountant for aging don Byron Farino much to the aggravation of the don's family and associates, who are secretly double-crossing one another and jockeying for power. Simmons sets up the paths of crossfire necessary for the story's few surprising twists, then simply lets the bodies start falling once the bullets start flying. His narrative is all sinew and bloody gristle, stripped of the deep reflection and lively character-development that usually give his books a plusher texture. His plot depends on coincidence, exploitation of the raging Niagara Falls backdrop and Joe's superhuman capacity for taking and dishing out physical abuse, but his rapid pacing keeps the reader from dwelling too much on its improbability. This tale is unlikely to advance modern crime-fiction's literary ambitions, but it will be hard to beat for a pulp-fiction beach-read. (July 16) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Ex-P.I. Joe Kurtz has just finished a jail term for throwing a bad guy out of a window onto the top of a police car. After his release, he accepts an assignment from a semi-retired Don to search for a missing Mafia accountant. In the course of the quest, Kurtz faces mafiosi, a sadistic druglord, hired killers, gangbangers, a family of retarded Aryan Brotherhood rejects, and a crooked cop, who come with names like Doorag, Cutter, Malcolm Kibunte, and the Dane. Before it's over, the tainted hero has maimed two thugs and killed nine others and committed three acts of arson. There's no letdown from explosive start to hell-for-leather finish in this hard-as-nails detective story. Comparison with Richard Stark's amoral badguy Parker or Andrew Vachss's Burke are inevitable, but Kurtz is more Parker than Burke: there is no sentimentality or excess prose here, just unceasing action with a ragged edge. Simmons (Darwin's Blade, The Crook Factory) has crafted an exceptional tale of nonstop violence and double cross. Watch out, bad guys! Kurtz is here! Enthusiastically recommended. David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Joe Kurtz emerges from Attica, after doing his 11 years for killing the man who killed his partner/lover Samantha Fielding, as stoic and focused as he went in. True, he'll never hold a private eye's license again. But that setback doesn't prevent him from telling Arlene Demarco, his former secretary, to quit her job, find a new office, and start looking around for computers and phone equipment. Even before he's settled into his new storefront, the windowless basement beneath an X-rated video place, Kurtz has already landed a job investigating the disappearance of Buell Richardson, missing accountant to Buffalo's once-powerful Farino crime family-except that isn't exactly what the job really involves. Kurtz's actual terms of employment will take him into the bed of wheelchair-bound Don Byron Farino's ambitious daughter Sophia, up against a Farino bodyguard who's perhaps a tad too sensitive about the harmless names he's called, and onto a collision course with nine different killers-ex-Crip Malcolm Kibunte, his wild-eyed sidekick Cutter, his associate Doo-Rap, Kurtz's mortal enemy Manny Levine, a professional assassin called the Dane, and the four Alabama Beagle Boys-who'd love nothing better than to empty their weapons into him, and get repeated chances to try. Old hands at this genre will know better than to form foolishly sentimental attachments to any of them. Genre-hopping Simmons, who made his bones in SF before switching to thrillers like The Crook Factory (1999) and Darwin's Blade (2000), handles the carnage here as confidently as if he'd teethed on a .45.
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