The Honor Farm - Hardcover

Westermann, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671871226 ISBN 13: 9780671871222

Publisher: Pocket Books, 1996

Synopsis

Six months before his scheduled retirement, Long Island officer Orin Boyd is unable to keep quiet when he witnesses an injustice and finds himself on the bad side of a corrupt New York State senator and his top aide.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A whodunit with a twist--instead of going undercover on the mean streets and leafy suburban lanes of New York's Nassau County (as he did in Exit Wounds, 1990), Patrol Officer Orin Boyd goes to jail to learn whether the prison-cell death of Police Commissioner David Trimble's son was a suicide or murder. And what a jail it is. Nicknamed the Honor Farm, the Nassau Country Correctional Facility at Sands Point is a former Gold Coast mansion that provides cushy containment for convicted police. With the exception of occasional shifts in the prison's slaughterhouse and a rare round of janitorial chores, the Honor Farm offers an almost comical regimen of nonstop rest and recreation for 20 crooked cops, many of whom know (and hate) Orin Boyd. And now is their chance to do something about it. As soon as the gates squeak shut on Boyd, who's agreed to be arrested and sent there as a cover for his investigation, his family finances are wiped out by a computer-hacking con who's chummy with some cops whom Boyd once arrested. Tommy Cotton, a corrupt senator Boyd humiliated during a traffic stop, tries to have Boyd beaten up. A creepy con named Harmless George goes after Boyd's wife, June, and another group of cons secretly launches a scam to buy the Farm. After one more apparent suicide, it's difficult to tell the schemers from the scammed as Boyd, a proud Vietnam vet blessed with equal helpings of brains and brawn, takes on all comers, uncovering a sad truth about crooked cops and the people who bend them to their will. A wry, street-smart, bare-knuckles, behind-bars brawl that bears up under a thick plot and a large cast of dirty denizens. Fans of the police procedurals of early Wambaugh and late McBain will delight in the gruff sensibilities of Westermann's heroes and the unregenerate sleaziness of his villains. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

On Long Island, Vietnam vet and Nassau County cop Orin Boyd (returning from Exit Wounds) is still only a uniformed cop, largely because of his frank contempt for authority. Breaking up an apparent assault, Boyd knocks around crooked right-wing State Senator Tommy Cotton (aka "Senator Sewer"). Cotton wants Boyd's head. But Police Commissioner David Trimble has a plan of his own: in exchange for Boyd copping a plea for assault, thus satisfying Cotton, and doing six months in the county's "country club" jail, he'll grant Boyd a gold shield?on the further condition that, while in jail, Boyd investigate the death of Trimble's son, who allegedly hanged himself with one day left in an 18-month sentence. Shortly after Boyd's arrival at the "farm," there's another "suicide" and the surfacing of many motley suspects. The top con there, an ex-PBA leader looking for Boyd's legendary stash of ill-gotten money, begins a computer campaign to dry up Boyd's bank accounts and to frame his wife for embezzlement. Boyd's boat is sunk, his house is torched and his wife and little daughter are stalked by a hit man. Westermann, who worked 20 years as a Long Island cop, brings plenty of colorful detail to the novel and to Boyd, who's smart, funny and not above taking the law into his own hands. The pacing is relentless, and the uncovering of secrets old and new will keep readers glued as they're plunged into a Long Island that's way beyond Levittown.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0671871226
• ISBN 13: 9780671871222
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 310