Ex-PI Joe Kurtz's survival is on the line when an ambush leaves him badly wounded and his parole officer Peg O'Toole barely clinging to life. Their respective professions have ensured that neither suffers from a shortage of enemies so discovering which of them was the intended target isn't easy. But Kurtz knows who's at the head of his list: Angelina Farino Ferrara, the lethal beauty who leads the Farino crime family, as well as her mob rival, ice cold Toma Gonzaga, who has his own dark history with Kurtz.
The odd thing is, each wants to hire Joe Kurtz to find out who's been waging war beneath the cold gray skies of western New York. Until now, the casualties have been heroin junkies and their dealers. But now, the shootings of Kurtz and O'Toole have drawn the notice of both the newspapers and Buffalo PD Detective Rigby King, who shared Kurtz's tough childhood in a Buffalo orphanage, and who wants to put Kurtz back in prison-or back in her bed. Even Kurtz's jaded past cannot prepare him for what he's about to learn as he finds himself caught in an ever-tightening vise between the wounded and warring mob families and the cops, unaware that a maniac is waiting for his chance to strike...
From Publishers Weekly
After last year's well-received Hard Freeze, Simmons stumbles with this disappointing mishmash, the latest entry in his series featuring ex-con-turned-PI Joe Kurtz. The book opens promisingly enough with a (literal) bang: "On the day he was shot in the head, things were going strangely well for Joe Kurtz.... Later, he told himself that he should have known that the universe was getting ready to readjust its balance of pain at his expense." The shooting leaves Kurtz with the headache of a lifetime and a female probation officer on life support. As if that weren't enough, Kurtz has to deal with Toma Gonzaga, the gay don who owes him a debt in blood. On top of that, someone is killing heroin addicts in Buffalo and hauling away the bodies. And on top of that, a serial killer known as the Artful Dodger (why do fictional serial killers always have colorful names?) launches a bizarre plot. There's more, much more, leading to a climax that's well-nigh incomprehensible. Any one, or two, of these plots would have made for a suspenseful mystery. Why Simmons insists on cramming them all into a 288-page novel is a mystery in itself. Surely he can't lack the courage of his fictional convictions? Unfortunately, it seems that way, and with so much going on, the novel lapses into a welter of absurdities. One can only hope for better things from this talented writer and Joe Kurtz in the future.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
In his third outing, hard-luck Buffalo PI Joe Kurtz is back in the wringer, and the versatile Simmons cranks it for all its worth. The ever sardonic Joe is slapped around, shot in the neck and back, precipitated down a ziggurat, and leaned on from every angle by Mafioso (amorous and otherwise), cops (ditto), hit men, an arms dealer, a drug kingpin and his cadre, and a ghastly and prolific psycho killer known as "the Dodger," unleashed by some shadowy Fagin on the world to treble the body count. All of which would be plenty to account for his searing migraines, never mind being shot in the head in chapter 1. With the exception of some sloggy backstory, the plot moves along well, although the uneasy marriage of gritty crime and macabre melodrama may leave some hard-boiled fans balking at baroque excesses worthy of James Patterson. In sum, a nice, dark, all-purpose thriller with some of the appeal of Mike Hammer, Parker or Burke, and all of the fun of Mac Bolan, Executioner. David Wright
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