Reckless Endangerment
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4.2 • 16 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict erupts in NYC in this “hair-raising” pre-9/11 thriller from the New York Times–bestselling author of Material Witness (People).
An elderly Jewish couple has been gunned down in their Fourteenth Street delicatessen. Above them, anti-Israel graffiti has been scrawled in Arabic. Evidence points to a few clueless teens, but this seemingly open-and-shut case threatens to stir up a dangerous and divisive media frenzy.
As rhetoric from Jewish and Muslim community leaders reaches fever pitch, prosecutor Butch Karp and his wife, private investigator Marlene Ciampi, fight to keep the city from coming apart at the seams. But the truth behind the horrifying crime is far more dangerous than anyone thought—and more victims are turning up. If public outrage doesn’t destroy the city, an ingenious group of conspirators just might.
From the former New York assistant DA and bestselling author of Infamy, this is a classic entry in the Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi series, which shows 1970’s New York in all its violent, dirty glory.
Reckless Endangerment is the 10th book in the Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
“While the legal writing is as expert as ever, this book gets its punch from Tanenbaum’s knotted, tangled vision of Manhattan.” —The Washington Post Book World
“Hair-raising.” —People
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Like a canvas by Bosch, the frenetic 10th installment in the popular Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi series (Irresistible Impulse, etc.) is all foreground, a three-ring circus of mayhem and mystery. Here Tanenbaum pits Deputy DA Karp, his detective cronies Raney and Fulton and his security-expert wife, Marlene, against an amorphous army of Palestinians terrorizing New York. When Arab youths are implicated in the murders of two elderly Jews, Karp finds himself having to placate local Arab and Jewish leaders and at the same time convince the brass that the crimes point to a conspiracy. Meanwhile, a Mexican hit man linked to two jailed drug dealers is threatening to shoot up the metropolis and murder Karp's rival, Homicide Bureau head Roland Hrcany. Back home, Marlene is caffeinating herself to delirium to balance work and family. Then the teenage sister of one of the Arab suspects, on the lam after stabbing a pimp, lands improbably in a shelter for battered women run by Marlene's friend. Should Marlene inform Karp, or protect the girl? As always, there's much to cheer in Tanenbaum's work: quirky characters, snappy cop-talk, even a slam-bang car chase through a Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn, and the rousing action resonates with deeper themes as Karp, a lapsed Jew, tentatively accepts his ethnicity. But the constant jumps between subplots are wearying, the large casts of racist cops and racist terrorists run together and the resolution is strained as absolutely everyone is tied together into a too-perfect knot. Mystery Guild selection. FYI: Media-alert readers will recognize Tanenbaum as the lawyer for a teenage defendant on trial in Delaware for killing her newborn baby.
