What You Break
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Selected as one of Amazon's Best Books of the Month for February
Former Suffolk County cop Gus Murphy returns to prowl the meaner streets of Long Island’s darkest precincts with a Russian mercenary at his back in the stunning second installment of Reed Farrel Coleman’s critically acclaimed, Edgar-nominated series.
Gus Murphy and his girlfriend, Magdalena, are put in harm’s way when Gus is caught up in the distant aftershocks of heinous crimes committed decades ago in Vietnam and Russia. Gus’s ex-priest pal, Bill Kilkenny, introduces him to a wealthy businessman anxious to have someone look more deeply into the brutal murder of his granddaughter. Though the police already have the girl’s murderer in custody, they have been unable to provide a reason for the killing. The businessman, Spears, offers big incentives if Gus can supply him with what the cops cannot—a motive.
Later that same day, Gus witnesses the execution of a man who has just met with his friend Slava. As Gus looks into the girl’s murder and tries to protect Slava from the executioner’s bullet, he must navigate a minefield populated by hostile cops, street gangs, and a Russian mercenary who will stop at nothing to do his master’s bidding. But in trying to solve the girl’s murder and save his friend, Gus may be opening a door into a past that was best left forgotten. Can he fix the damage done, or is it true that what you break you own...forever?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Shamus Award winner Coleman delves deep into the wounded psyche of his ex-cop lead, Gus Murphy, in his outstanding sequel to 2016's Where It Hurts. Gus, who's still struggling with the sudden death of his 20-year-old son, John Jr., kills time working as a courtesy-van driver shuttling between a ratty Suffolk County hotel and Long Island's MacArthur Airport. Meanwhile, the hidden past of his friend Slava Podalak, the hotel's night bellman, has resurfaced with a vengeance, and Gus becomes a witness to murder. In addition, Gus's confidant, Bill Kilkenny, a former priest, asks him to help the wealthy Micah Spears find out not who butchered his granddaughter but why. Spears makes Gus an offer impossible to resist funding a youth sports foundation in John Jr.'s name. Coleman doesn't pull any punches or settle for pat character arcs in presenting a realistically flawed Gus, who realizes that his morality "was not so much a search for the truth as a set of rationalizations that let sleep at night."
Customer Reviews
Give me a break
2.5 stars
Author
American (aka Tony Spinosa). Crime novelist and poet. The "noir poet laureate" according to the Huff Post. Numerous awards and award nominations. Published various series of his own and, in 2014, took over the Jess Stone series created by the late Robert B Parker. Robert B Parker was a titan of US crime fiction. More important, there's a small screen version of every Jess Stone story and a thirst for more, a tidy little earner for Mr Coleman no doubt.
Precis
John Murphy, known as Gus, a former police officer with Suffolk County PD on Long Island is now a PI. He works as hotel detective at a downmarket hotel near the airport, doubling as driver for the passenger transit van. Lots of bad stuff (physical violence++, ratting out bent cops, death of his son, breakup of his marriage etc.) happened in the first instalment. Our boy has a new GF but still keeps in touch with his ex. Slava, a co-worker, who says he's Polish but is actually Russian or Ukrainian (I'm not sure which), won't talk about his past but clearly knows his way around a gun and a sap. A wealthy man hires Gus to look into the reasons why his young niece was stabbed 23 times. The cops have the guy cold on forensic evidence and he's in custody, but he's a gang member and won't talk. Slava keeps bad company; people get dead; Gus gets beaten up some more, yada, yada. Ending draws together the nasty types. Gus lives to fight another day.
Writing
Darkly poetic at times (surprise, surprise). Seemingly endless interior monologues bored me rigid. Maybe it's brain damage from all the beatings that makes Gus ramble on so. Plot development reasonable but too slow for my liking. You can skip large slabs of text without losing track. Character development good, which it should be considering the amount of time spent on it. Frequent references to events in Book #1 are confusing for those of us who haven't read it.
Bottom line
Mr Coleman is clearly a talented writer, but I found this one dull and far too long. Plenty disagree (4.4 stars on Amazon, 3.98 stars on Goodreads)