Blaze - Hardcover

Leuci, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380976250 ISBN 13: 9780380976256

Publisher: William Morrow, 1999

Synopsis

A police captain and lead investigator for the chief of New York's detectives, Nora Riter is smart, strong-willed, and beautiful--a rising star. But her personal life is threatening to send her career into a nosedive. Struggling to reestablish controlboth professionally and personally-she takes on a case that leads her to the meanest of Brooklyn's streets, the domain of Blaze Longo, a Red Hook loan shark and pathological killer in steel-toed boots. Longo's reputation for cruelty and sadistic behavior strikes terror in the hearts of even the most hardened tough guys. Up until now, he has remained untouchable. But Blaze has never encountered the like of Captain Nora Riter.

But she needs help, and it's coming in the form of a most unlikely ally: good-looking sometime actor, always streetwise Nicky the Hawk Ossman. Ossman knows Brooklyn's Red Hook better than anyone and he has good reasons to want the psychopathic Blaze oft the streets. There's Nicky's adopted sevenyear-old son, Tino, and a light-headed prostitute cousin named Irma, both of whom share Nicky's life-and neither can make it through this life without him. Therefore, a stretch in prison for assaulting a vice cop--a very real prospect proposed to him by a determined Nora Riter-is unthinkable. So he agrees to go undercover to nail the madman Blaze.

Stalking Longo is perilous work, and Nicky soon wants out. Nora, however, wants Longo in the worst way. Circumstance has thrown Nora and Nicky together in this very dangerous game, which is smelling increasingly of secrecy, lies, and betrayal emanating from the top levels of the department. But they can survive the coming conflagration if they are willing to break all their own rules. There is one busted commandment, however, that could cost them everything: the unwritten law that says a cop and her informant must never get romantically involved.

 

A police captain and lead investigator for the chief of New York's detectives, Nora Riter is smart, strong-willed, and beautiful-a rising star. But her personal life is threatening to send her career into a nosedive. Struggling to reestablish control-both professionally and personally-she takes on a case that leads her to the meanest of Brooklyn's streets, the domain of Blaze Longo, a Red Hook loan shark and pathological killer in steel-toed boots. Longo's reputation for cruelty and sadistic behavior strikes terror in the heads of even the most hardened tough guys. Up until now, he has remained untouchable. But Blaze has never encountered the like of Captain Nora Riter.

But she needs help, and it's coming in the form of a most unlikely ally: good-looking sometime actor, always streetwise Nicky the Hawk Ossman. Ossman knows Brooklyn's Red Hook better than anyone and he has good reasons to want the psychopathic Blaze off the streets. There's Nicky's adopted seven-year-old son, Tino, and a light-headed prostitute cousin named Irma, both of whom share Nicky's life-and neither can make it through this life without him. Therefore, a stretch in prison for assaulting a vice cop-a very real proposed to him by a determined Nora Riter-is unthinkable. So he agrees to go undercover to nail the madman Blaze.

Stalking Longo is perilous work, and Nicky soon wants out. Nora, however, wants Longo in the worst way. Circumstance has thrown Nora and Nicky together in this very dangerous game, which is smelling increasingly of secrecy, lies, and betrayal emanating from the top levels of the department. But they can survive the coming conflation if they are willing to break all their own rules. There is one busted commandment, however, that could cost them everything: the unwritten law that says a co and her informant must never get romantically involved.

About this title

About the Author

A narcotics detective in New York City for more than twenty years, Robert Leuci is the author of several books, including Blaze. He lives in Rhode Island.

Reviews

Former New York City police detective Leuci unleashes another torrid cop thriller that captures the gritty tension of police work and the criminal mindset without aggrandizing either. The title of Leuci's fourth novel refers to Blaze Longo, who plunders the streets of Brooklyn's Red Hook section, carrying a pouch around his neck containing ears severed from the many people he's maimed in his line of work: kidnapping for profit. On Blaze's bloody trail is police captain Nora Riter, a gifted big shot in the department who looks disarmingly like a beautiful hippie. She doesn't much like the Longo investigation, having few contacts in Red Hook's criminal underworld. Suspicious about why her boss assigned her to the case and distracted by her crumbling marriage, Riter needs help. It comes in the form of Nicky Ossman, a Red Hook native, struggling actor and petty thief who grew up with Blaze and knows how the thug, who's also a loan shark and ringleader, gained a stranglehold on the neighborhood. Together, Riter and Ossman devise an elaborate sting, one that crosses ethical as well as legal boundaries. Leuci, who in real life testified against several New York City cops in a landmark corruption trial popularized in Robert Daly's Prince of the City, moves the action along briskly, showing sentimentality toward no one. The cops are often just as bad as the criminals, while the criminals occasionally show traces of dignity and grace. Leuci (The Snitch; Fence Jumpers) falls back on the standard archetypes of the cop novelAthe obsessively driven investigator, the squad room politics and sneaky tricks, the seemingly untouchable villainAand plenty of law-enforcement jargon. Yet he has the flavoring right in all the ingredients and keeps the focus on the characters, who, with their edgy realness, compensate for any predictable elements of the plot. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A hard-pressed female cop battles criminals in and out of the NYPD in this latest of Leuci's savvy police dramas (The Snitch, 1997, etc.). When the Chief of Detectives gives his lead investigator a job to do, she does it, no questions asked. That doesn't mean questions don't occur to Captain Nora Ritter. Dispatch a senior officer to check out a loan shark? Something doesn't add up. Pretty soon, though, the pieces begin to fit together. It's love, Nora learns, top-brass style. Blaze Longo, the loan shark, has been leaning on small-time gambler Alfred Nieri, who just happens to be the dad of Roseann Palumbo, who just happens to be the Chiefs main squeeze. Roseann wants the loan shark to leave daddy alone, and what Roseann wants, Roseann getshence Captain Nora's trip to the mean streets of Brooklyn's Red Hook District. But Blaze Longo isn't just a loan shark; he's an authentic sociopath. He cuts off ears, for instance, for the simple joy of it and has a portable collection of his trophies available for instant display. Moreover, there's a scam he's running with his sociopathic opposite numbera veteran cop, much decorated, but every bit Longos match in savagery. For the sake of her career, not to mention her very survival, Nora has to smash this unholy alliance. To help in the task, she forms her own alliance with Nick Ossman, an unemployed actor who's known Blaze since they were Red Hook kids. Ad hoc and a little desperate, it's a pairing that turns out to be surprisingly effective, paying off with a personal bonus as well. Leuci's Nick and Nora are as far from Dashiell Hammett's as grit is from wit. Still, his duo here has undeniable appeal, strong enough to drive this inelegant but compelling novel. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"Blaze is serious bad news. He makes his living scaring people to death, because death is what he can deliver." A small-time loanshark who cuts off the ears of those who offend him, Blaze is nuts enough, but not smart enough, to plan the string of lucrative kidnappings he's conducted recently. So who's pulling his strings? Ambitious and beautiful police captain Nora Riter, assigned the task of bringing Blaze down, enlists sometime-wiseguy Nicky "The Hawk" Osman as an unwilling partner: "Help or go to jail," she tells him. The chemistry between the two complicates an already explosive mix. Leuci's novels (most recently The Snitch) aren't about detection as much as crime itself. His familiarity with the dark, dangerous underworld of crime and the lowlife players in the game redeems this somewhat uneven novel. The book starts slowly, but from the midpoint on, it's a high-energy ride. Recommended for public libraries.ADavid Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0380976250
• ISBN 13: 9780380976256
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400