Johnny Careless
A Novel
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4.6 • 13 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“A fast-moving classic crime novel” (John Sandford) crafted by the veteran screenwriter and showrunner for the acclaimed police procedural series Blue Bloods, Johnny Careless is Kevin Wade’s razor-sharp debut novel.
Police Chief Jeep Mullane has been bounced back home to Long Island’s North Shore by a heartbreaking case that both earned him his NYPD detective’s shield and burned him out of the Job. Now heading up a small local police department, he finds himself navigating the same geography he did growing up there as the son of an NYPD cop. Jeep is a “have-not” among the glittering “haves,” a sharp-witted, down-to-earth man in a territory defined and ruled by multigenerational wealth and power and the daunting tribal codes and customs that come with it.
When the corpse of Jeep’s childhood friend Johnny Chambliss—born into privilege and known as “Johnny Careless” for his reckless, golden-boy antics—surfaces in the Bayville waters, past collides with present, and Jeep is pulled into a treacherous web. He is challenged by Johnny’s wealthy and secretive family and his beautiful, enigmatic ex-wife as he untangles a knotted mystery fraught with theft, corrupt local moguls, and decades-old secrets, all while grappling with his own deep-seated grief for his lost pal.
A fast-paced story, Johnny Careless “combines grit and wit in a way that conjures Donald Westlake or Robert Parker in full stride” (Carl Hiassen).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Blue Bloods showrunner Wade makes a splashy debut with this stirring procedural about a veteran cop's probe into the death of his former best friend. After a traumatizing case, Jeep Mullane leaves the NYPD to become the chief of a new police department in the wealthy part of Long Island where he grew up. While Jeep investigates a rash of car thefts, his colleagues discover a faceless male corpse on a beach in the small town of Bayville. The dead man bears a tattoo that identifies him as Johnny Chambliss, Jeep's best friend from high school. Horrified, Jeep begins poking around Johnny's affluent family for answers and stumbles onto a frightening web of corruption. Wade smoothly toggles between Jeep's present-day investigation and his friendship with Johnny, shedding light on their class differences and the events that led them to lose touch in adulthood. Wade's gift for suspense is as well honed as one would expect from his film and TV credits—the real surprise is his character work, which goes deep enough that readers will find themselves thinking about Jeep and Johnny long after they've turned the final page. Haunting and heartbreaking, this is a winner.
Customer Reviews
Enjoyable read
Hope you write another sequel. Characters and plot were interesting and believable.