Mr X - Softcover

Gaitano, Nick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747247501 ISBN 13: 9780747247500

Publisher: Headline, 1995

Synopsis

Second tense and shocking police thriller in outstanding new sequence.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

In his first cop thriller, Special Victims, Gaitano killed off his hero, making a sequel unlikely. But here rookie Jake Phillips, an important player in that book, returns to lead another look at Chicago's seamier side. Jake's partner, top homicide cop Alex Mondello (Mondo), becomes the major suspect in the murder of a much-hated fellow cop who was shot to death while acting as bodyguard for a small-time lawyer, also murdered, who ran a telephone sex business. Readers meet Mr. X, a sadist whose vicious conversation can drive even hardened sex-line ladies into whimpering despair, and who had it out for the lawyer. A connection between Mr. X and Mondo is established as Gaitano spins out a series of odd but believable coincidences that draw much of the cast into the same web. Gaitano continues to deliver the unexpected so that readers can't be sure that any characters, even the principals, will survive; he limns particularly well the fragile relationship between Jake and his debutante wife. The violent conclusion leaves the door open for a return visit by some members of this cast in Gaitano's promised third novel.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Most callers to phone-sex lines are lonely men with no other outlet. But Laura Bingham, only two days on the job, gets one of the scary ones. This caller wants to find her and do all sorts of disgusting things to her. Al, who runs the operation, is equally terrified because the caller seems to know all about him. Al hires a nasty Chicago cop as a bodyguard. Both are murdered. The most likely suspect is Alex "Mondo" Mondello, a homicide cop with a grudge against the bodyguard. Jack Phillips, Mondo's partner, is asked by the squad commander to look into the case and to find the missing Mondo. Many of the characters here were introduced in Gaitano's earlier Special Victims , a deservedly acclaimed first novel that is also set in the world of Chicago homicide detectives. Like its predecessor, this latest in the series is well plotted, atmospheric, and ends with an unexpected twist. Wes Lukowsky

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0747247501
• ISBN 13: 9780747247500
• Binding: Paperback