Synopsis
Investigating the murders of two men who dressed as Hasidic Jews, Bureau of Indian Affairs attorney Joshua Rabb uncovers a gangster in disguise and learns that his own daughter is dating the son of Mafia don Joseph Bonanno. 15,000 first printing.
Reviews
The Southwest of the late 1940s is the setting for this series, featuring part-time Bureau of Indian Affairs lawyer Joshua Rabb, a one-armed WWII veteran and widower from Brooklyn last seen in Versions of Truth. Here the mob has moved West to build a casino. Rabb, based in Tucson, has been hired on retainer by Meyer Lansky, who faces a Grand Jury inquiry about his role in financing Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Rabb is also called on when the body of a murdered Hasidic Jew is discovered in a remote area of the local Indian reservation, not far from an injured companion, who later dies suspiciously in his hospital bed. While working on both cases, Rabb finds himself enmeshed in the world of organized crime, even as his 15-year-old daughter, in a contrived subplot, becomes involved with the mafia via a romance with Joe Bonnanno's son. While the action and famous names will likely hold readers' attention, neither period nor players are vividly depicted. It's mostly meltdown in this melting pot of Italian mobsters, Jewish lawyers, Native Americans, Mexicans and good old boys, as Parrish substitutes dialect and one liners for solid character development.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Parrish's Joshua Rabb mystery series continues to sizzle and satisfy in its third volume. The setting is Tucson during the late 1940s, and attorney Rabb is a Jewish war veteran with an aluminum arm, six remaining toes, and uncompromisable ethics. He works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs but also finds plenty of work and trouble as a public defender. The Arizona-Mexico desert is a violent, hardscrabble place where greed and prejudice lead to all sorts of criminal acts and a Yankee Jew sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb among the gringos, Papago Indians, and Mexican Americans. This particular investigative adventure involves murder, double-dealing, and heroin smuggling and begins with that all too familiar story about Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and their feud with the Mafia, but Parrish quickly veers off in a wholly fresh and suspenseful direction when he has Rabb's 15-year-old daughter befriend Lansky's son. Parrish excels at gleefully vulgar banter, easy romance, and compelling scenes of confrontation in and out of the courtroom, and Rabb is an endearing and versatile hero. Donna Seaman
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