Buckingham Blowout (Mercenary Ser. 17)

Rating:
Summary: A fun read
Review: A nighttime fiction writer, Steven J. Frank has a varied background. He majored in chemistry as an undergraduate at Brown University and earned a law degree at Harvard Law School. He has written short stories, scientific and legal jargon, so he is well versed in a variety of writing styles. He presently resides outside of Boston with his family.

Set in Hudson County, New Jersey, Sell-Out tells the story of a seemingly harmless old man murdered in his own warehouse filled with low-grade leather merchandise. But when the police tie him into a drug scheme, Russ Hartman, a patrol cop with aspirations towards detective, finds himself in the midst of a confusing mass of deception, ethnic interrelationships, and a maze of offshore accounts which may be related to the murder, especially after he has become involved with the niece of the murder victim:

"'Second item,' Neenan said tartly, unhappy with all the interruptions. 'A seemingly innocent relationship between a patrol officer and an attractive victim's relative whom he encounters on the job. Two earnest souls reaching out. Or so perhaps it seems to the patrol officer. But he lacks certain facts. For example, that the object of his affection had an older brother, dead at eighteen from a heroin overdose in a New Jersey City crack house. Or that her surviving brother has had numerous--well, perhaps I overstate the case--has had certain encounters with the criminal justice system.'"

Sell-out is a fast-paced, intelligently written, and at times poetic novel written in vivid color. Frank's characters and locales literally jump off the page. Franks knows when to shroud characters in secrecy, and when to expose their vulnerability. The result is a dark and intensely entertaining whodunit that keeps the reader's head spinning with possibilities until the final critical scene. Russ Hartman is an intelligent cop with a talent in the kitchen and with the ladies who adds to the luster of the tale. His own personal struggles with law enforcement only serve to remind us that there are no absolutes in life. Even as Hartman is trying to do the right thing, he is constantly subjected to being considered a murder suspect in a world where it is sometimes difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys. A fun read.

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer