What you break / Reed Farrel Coleman.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, [2017]Copyright date: ©2017Description: 357 pages ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780399173042
- 0399173048
Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Bedford Public Library Mystery | Fiction | F COL | Available | 32500005392221 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
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.
"Gus Murphy series"-- Page before title page.
"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 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?"-- Provided by publisher.
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Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
After his son's sudden death, Gus -Murphy was a tortured soul. He credits his recovery to his friendship with ex-priest Bill Kilkenny, so when Kilkenny asks Murphy to meet a friend, he agrees. The friend is Micah Spears, whose granddaughter was brutally murdered. Spears wants answers, but the apprehended killer is silent. Gus, a cop-turned-van driver for a Long Island hotel, gets caught up in a second case when one of his passengers is murdered gangland style. It turns out Gus's coworker and friend Slava, who has a secretive past, had known the stranger previously. Murphy is your average caring guy, who is good at his job and full of faults, whose philosophy is evident and commentary on point. Murphy is not slick, but he is effective. VERDICT -Coleman's second series outing (after Where It Hurts) is part police procedural, part human interest story, part philosophical monolog, and totally fun reading. [See Prepub Alert, 8/15/16.]-Edward -Goldberg, Syosset P.L., NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
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 [him] sleep at night." Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Booklist Review
Coleman writes some of the best prose in modern crime fiction, but it comes at a price. As hero Gus Murphy, former cop and former family man, now hotel security and bar bouncer, goes through his dangerous day, we admire the beautifully crafted sentences, all the while dodging those bullets. Taking cracks to the jaw. Avoiding that car coming up behind us too fast, guns at the windows. Murphy has been hired to investigate a young girl's murder. Not who did it the scumbag's in jail but why. There is no apparent motive. Nearly 300 pages later, we, and Murphy, are still in the dark. Instead of solutions, we get the company of a depressive given to reminding us that the world is cold and wondering if there are things other than grief and pain to life. Readers who long to take a Weedwacker to all these neo-Hemingway musings are advised to hang on. The novel ends with a series of stunning set pieces that are sure to be echoed, just as they echo The Godfather. I will call on you one day, Gus . . . . --Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2016 BooklistAuthor notes provided by Syndetics
Reed Farrel Coleman is the author of Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone series, the Moe Prager series, short stories, and poetry. He is a three-time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories - Best Novel, Best Paperback Original, Best Short Story - and a three-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year. He has also won the Audie, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards. He is an adjunct instructor of English at Hofstra University and a founding member of MWA University.Reed's novels are perennial bestsellers featured on the New York Times, USA Today and other bestseller lists.
(Bowker Author Biography)