Westerfield's Chain
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
"Westerfield's Chain," was first published by St. Martin's in 2002, and was a Shamus Award Finalist. KirkusReviews said: "When someone asks ex–homicide cop Nick Acropolis if he misses being on the job, he replies, "Every fucking day," acknowledging a painful truth. He misses the work, the camaraderie, but most of all the self-respect, that sense of himself as someone who matters, acquired over the 15 years he served as a high-profile Chicago police detective—and snatched from him wrongfully, he insists, by men who knew better. Now Nick's a small-timer, a hand-to-mouth p.i. investigating the peccadilloes of other small-timers and hating every minute of it—as he's hating the minute he serendipitously bumps into spunky young Rebecca Westerfield, who's searching for her missing father while Nick's tracking down the missing witness to a minor auto accident. On the surface, there's not much to connect the two cases, but Nick ever regards a surface as the thin veneer of a secret—in this case, a lot of secrets, most of them nasty, fraudulent, or positively lethal. Before he's through sleuthing, Nick uncovers a multimillion-dollar welfare scam, solves a brutal murder or two, locates Becky's worthless dad, and lightens the lives of a couple of eminently worthwhile ladies. In addition, he gets to experience the heady pleasures of a higher profile once more as he thumbs his nose at the corps of bilious blue-clad bureaucrats who summarily sacked him.
The Chicago Tribune called the book the best mystery of the month and said, "There's a memorable moment [on] virtually every page."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A brisk style and fine descriptions help offset a less-than-scintillating plot in Clark's debut mystery. While investigating a traffic altercation involving an off-duty police officer, Nick Acropolis, a former homicide cop now working as a low-level PI in Chicago, learns about first one missing person, then another. Eugene Westerfield is "on vacation" indefinitely, and Jimmy Madison, a student who works in one of Westerfield's drugstores, disappears just after Nick gets his statement about the traffic case. Nick follows a suspicious car with out-of-town plates and meets Becky Westerfield, daughter of Eugene, who's come home to hunt for her dad. Although Becky is convinced her father is a saint, Nick gathers more and more evidence that Eugene has been committing an impressive amount of welfare fraud. As the off-the-books owner of a medical center, Eugene has been hiring doctors who are no longer employable in the reputable world. These doctors prescribe hundreds of unnecessary medications, and the patients are sent to Westerfield's drugstores to get the prescriptions filled. Nick's backstory could have provided more nuances if it had been revealed sooner. A few minor characters come through strongly such as a bike repair guy named Purcell and a fascinating mute homeless man but there are so many others that it's hard to keep them straight, let alone appreciate them. Still, whatever the book's flaws, it's a great read, one that ought to appeal in particular to Robert B. Parker fans. FYI:The author, a cab driver, also writes a column for theChicago Reader.
