The Big Silence

Abe Lieberman and his Irish partner, Bill Hanrahan, investigate the kidnapping of a government witness supposedly shielded under the federal witness protection program. 25,000 first printing.

Versatile, prolific and reliable, Kaminsky seldom disappoints, whether spinning a tale about his Russian policeman (Porfiry Rostnikov), private eye to the stars (Toby Peters) or Chicago policeman Abe Lieberman. Here Lieberman and his Irish partner, Bill Hanrahan, known to colleagues as "the Rabbi and the Priest," have to handle an onslaught of personal and professional crises. Hanrahan, a former football lineman who missed out on a pro career because of bad knees, is nearly suicidal over a blown assignment that resulted in a kidnapping and murder. Lieberman, a slight, 60ish career policeman, juggles a pair of bothersome cases and a pair of family crises on top of shouldering some of Hanrahan's burden as a partner should. Drawing on Chicago's cultural diversity, Kaminsky enriches the story with a range of Jewish, Irish-Catholic, Korean, African-American, Hispanic and other ethnic characters. In his world-weary, wise and compassionate way, Lieberman uses every tool at his command, from common sense to favors traded as readily with a gang leader as with another cop. Crimes are not so much solved as resolved. And the partnerships Lieberman has forged with his compatriotsDbe they relatives, police officers, suspects or citizensDmake the resolutions and the process of achieving them a joy to follow. (Dec.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A clock ticks on the life of a Mob squealer's son while the two Chicago cops trying to save his life are distracted by a stick-up team, scam artists, a mentally-ill ex-football star who is murdered, family responsibilities, weariness, guilt, and dicey digestion. In the latest addition to the Edgar-winning Kaminsky's Lieberman series, one of the cops, Detective Bill Hanrahan, goes on assignment to Cleveland to protect the wife and 17-year-old son of a Mob bookkeeper who has started to blab to the feds. The assignment goes haywire, with the bookkeeper's wife murdered and the son kidnapped. Hanrahan takes his load of guilt back to his partner, Abe Lieberman, who philosophically metes out advice to Hanrahan while dealing with a suicidal brother and disappointing daughter. The Lieberman mysteries, presenting messy lives and troubled memories, are intriguing mysteries of character, as much about solving moral problems as they are about solving crimes. Connie Fletcher
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