Synopsis
In his latest case, NYPD detective Neil Hockaday takes on a murderer who targets religious figures in the city's Hell's Kitchen district. And as the case progresses, Hock starts to realize that this killer may have a more-than-mortal lust for blood.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-09-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 326 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 5.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.2 in | | Weight: | 17.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
"Neil Hockaday is marvelously drawn," praised the Washington Post Book World of the doubting Irish Catholic detective and hero of Thomas Adock's acclaimed series. Critics have hailed his previous Hockaday novel as "lively and literate" (The New York Times Book Review) and "supremely entertaining" (Cleveland Plain Dealer). Now, in his most powerful work yet, Adock returns to the place he knows best: Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. Two blocks and a million miles from Broadway, it's where Al Capone was born and Westies thugs once ruled, where modern-day yuppies turn a blind eye to desperate and broken lives embedded in the concrete and clamor of its timeworn streets.
Detective Neil Hockaday--a "Kitchen Kid" to the bone, schooled by nuns and street characters in the New York City art of survival--has lodged a brutality complaint against a fellow officer, and is therefore self-exiled from NYPD camaraderie. No matter; he is looking forward to the birth of his first child and shopping for a bigger apartment with his wife, the beautiful African-American actress Ruby Flagg. Life is good, and the future looks better--if only Hock can prevail in some dicey cop politics. But then suddenly, at the convergence of Jewish and Christian holidays, Hock and Ruby are drawn into killer's savage design, beginning only a few blocks from their home.
The first victim is a friend: charismatic young rabbi, slain before his own minyan. Fourteen eyewitnesses can tell Hock only that the killer was a "shadow." As Hock investigates, more blood is spilled, and a tabloid reporter connects the murders to Grief Street, the title of a disturbing play sent to Ruby by its anonymous author. The script predicts death to the most devout and charitable residents of Hell's Kitchen.
With mounting public pressure to pull a madman out of the darkness, Hock sifts for clues among the living and the dead, all the while watching his back for the threat of angry rogue cops. From the cruel and embittered Sergeant Joseph "King Kong" Kowalski to the philosophical Father Gerald " Creepy" Morrison, a hermit Jesuit priest, Hock confronts men and women shaped and haunted by the gritty world around them. In the end, Hock realizes he must battle a force more powerful than a mere policeman's badge and bullets, a force no less than the very essence of evil.
Detective Neil Hockaday and his wife are drawn into a killer's savage design, beginning only a few blocks from their home. And now Hock must battle a forcemore powerful than a mere policeman's badge and bullets, a force no less thanthe very essence of evil.
Industry Reviews
"Adcock fills the shell of the detective story to the bursting point with Catholic guilt, self-laceration, and spiritual crisis, with a magnificent starring role for Hell's Kitchen."
Stasio
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