Red on Red
A Novel
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3.7 • 67 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The author of the celebrated memoir Blue Blood (“May be the best account ever written of life behind the badge.” —Time) delivers a mesmerizing, relentless thriller that rings with the truth of what it takes to be an NYPD detective. Nick Meehan is introspective, haunted, and burned out on the Job. He is transferred to a squad in the upper reaches of Manhattan and paired with Esposito—a hungry, driven cop who has mostly good intentions but trouble following the rules. The two develop a fierce friendship that plays out against a tangle of mysteries: a hanging in a city park, a serial rapist at large, a wayward Catholic schoolgirl who may be a victim of abuse, and a savage gang war that erupts over a case of mistaken identity.
Red on Red captures the vibrant dynamic of a successful police partnership—the tests of loyalty, the necessary betrayals, the wedding of life and work. Conlon is a natural and perceptive storyteller, awake to the ironies and compromises of life on the Job and the beauty and brutality of the city itself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
NYPD detective Conlon, author of the memoir Blue Blood, turns to fiction with this ambitious, sprawling epic of police life. Nick Meehan, a New York City detective slipping into mid-career burnout, takes a special case for Internal Affairs to investigate a suspected dirty cop. Meehan and his new detective partner, Esposito, look into a variety of other cases, including the apparent suicide of a recently arrived Mexican immigrant woman, gangland slayings by rival drug dealers (called "red on red" or criminal on criminal killings), and a serial rapist. In between the crime solving, Conlon examines the personal lives of his two main players, the subtle alliances and loyalties, the emotional tolls, the temptations, the shades of gray inherent to police work. The pace may be slower than the average thriller, but this expertly crafted novel will appeal to readers of literary crime masters such as George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, and Richard Price.
Customer Reviews
Bp
A very good read - interesting
Red On Red
Paints a very true picture of the city, the politics, and the anguish from a cop's point of view. Didn't want to put it down.
Red on Red
Exceedingly well-written, a fascinating character study with an inside-out point of view. Extremely well crafted.