Bloody London [Import] [Mass Market Paperback]

Reggie Nadelson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 18, 2006

Thomas Pascoe, a super-rich, elderly investment banker, is found gorily murdered on the day he was due to return to London, floating in the pool of the most exclusive apartment block in New York. As head of the co-op board, Pascoe had his say in who got to live in the block — and who didn’t. But could that really be a motive for his murder?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Red Mercury Blues and Hot Poppies, Nadelson's first two books about Russian-born New York cop Artie Cohen were colorful but basically conventional mysteries. In her third book, the author makes a major leap forward in scope and depth. The novel--a harrowing take on the sickness that seeped out of Russia following the collapse of communism and infected New York and London--offers a frightening, apocalyptic vision of two cities drowning in success. Characters we've met before have grown and changed: Artie, still carrying several loads of immigrant baggage from his journey to Moscow to Israel to New York, is no longer a cop but a PI, doing special jobs for a much-subdued Sonny Lippert, his mentor, who's a federal prosecutor. Artie's lover, Lily Haines, now the mother of an adopted Chinese baby girl, is worried that Artie's current case--looking into a Russian connection to the murder of a wealthy and powerful Englishman who ruled his exclusive Sutton Place co-op with a ruthless hand--might stir up some old secrets of her own, especially about her ex-husband, who has a found a way to profit from the homeless. And Tolya Sverdloff, Cohen's charming and conniving friend from the streets of Moscow and Brighton Beach, is now a high-flying player in some brutal financial games, worried enough to have a secret steel-walled safe room carved into his apartment. The scenes set in New York City are taut and sharply etched, but the novel really takes off--into Nathaniel West country--when Artie follows Lily to a London ready to burst from catastrophic rains and the accumulated poisons of decades of official greed and neglect. This is a powerful portrait of cities, and people, wobbling on the edge. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Location, location, location. Who wouldn't think of ex-cop Artie Cohen (Hot Poppies, 1999, etc.) as a downtown kind of guy on hearing him wax rhapsodic over his loftwith views of Soho, Tribeca, and Nolitaas he sits on its rooftop nibbling smoked mozzarella with Lily Haines, his smart, hip, long-legged, red-haired ladylove, watching her adopted Chinese foundling splash adorably in her baby pool? But a call from Sonny Lippert, a pal from Artie's days on the force, drags him ever upscale, first to tony Sutton Place, where self-exiled Brit Tommy Pascoe's near-beheaded corpse is found floating in the exclusive pool of his exclusive co-op, then to a Brighton Beach nightspot, where rich Eurothugs flaunt their Versaced Natashas, and, finally, to bloody Londonwhere, before her suicide, Tommy's elegant widow Frankie assured him it would all endracketing around the overdeveloped Thames riverfront with a staggering trail of corpses in his wake. Given the sexual discrimination of a coon hound and a gun fetish that would make Charlton Heston proud, Artie may be somebody's idea of a hard-boiled hero, but his prose is strictly Velveeta. Would Philip Marlowe describe his case as ``the geoplastic phase of those volcanoes . . . the lava that keeps coming at you, getting bigger, moving faster''? -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Arrow (July 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099497794
• ISBN-13: 978-0099497790
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,970,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars publishers weekly starred review, January 10, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Bloody London (Hardcover)

Dear Amazon, I was disappointed to see that you had posted the netative Kirkus review, but not the very positive Starred Publishers Weekly which goes like this: "Red Mercury Blues and Hot Poppies, Nadelson's first two books about Russian-born New York cop Artie Cohen were colorful but basically conventional mysteries. In her third book (Bloody London) the author makes a major leap forward in scope and depth. The novel-a harrowing take on the sickness that seeped out of Russian following the collapse of communism and infected New York and London--offers a frightrening, apocalyptic vision of two cities drowning in success. Characters we've met before have grown and changed: Artie, still carrying several loads of immigrant baggage from his journey to Moscow to Israel to New York, is no longer a cop, but a PI, doing special jobs for a much subdued Sonny Lippert, his mentor, who's a federal prosecutor. Artie's lover, Lily Hanes, now the mother of an adopted chinese baby girl, is worried that Artie's current case--looking into a Russian connection to the murder of a wealthy and powerful Englishman who ruled his exclusive Sutton Place co-op with a ruthless hand-might stir up some old secrets of her own, especially about her ex-husband, who has found a way to profit from the homeless. And Tolya Sverdloff, Cohen's charming and connniving friend from the streets of Moscow and Brighton Beach, is now a high-flying player in some brutal financial games, worried enough to have a secret steel-walled safe room carved into his apartment. The scenes set in new York City are taut and sharply etched, but the novel really takes off--into Nathaniel West country--when Artie follows Lily to a a London ready to burst from catastrophic rains and the accumulated poisons of decades of official greed and neglect. This is a powerful portrait of cities and people, wobbling on the edge. (Publishers Weekly, November 22, l999) STARRED REVIEW. I would be delighted if you would post this and perhaps take out the Kirkus.

5.0 out of 5 stars A New Queen Of Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction, November 26, 2000

By 

Eivets Rednow (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bloody London (Hardcover)

Reggie Nadelson's latest brings back her Russian/American hero Artie Cohen as a private eye. Artie is worldly-wise, soulful, and not above making up the rules as he goes along. Nadelson's New York and London are pitch-perfect, her plot appropriately labyrinthine, and her best heroines are at once beautiful, wised-up, willful, and--intriguingly--over 40. If you like intelligently written mysteries that keep one eye on the headlines--Michael Connelly comes to mind--you're going to love this.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Artie Cohen mystery, January 15, 2000

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bloody London (Hardcover)

Former Russian citizen, Artie Cohen left NYPD to become a private investigator. Much of his work comes from Sonny Lippert, who asks Artie to investigate a Manhattan murder of a British expatriate Tommy Pascoe. The assailant tried to remove the victim's head before leaving the deceased to swim in an exclusive Sutton Place pool.

Artie begins to investigate the murder and soon finds a Russian connection that sends the sleuth into Brooklyn. Other killings follow and lead Artie to London where the city seems on the verge of annihilation or exhilaration depending on where you sit in the food chain.

BLOODY LONDON, the third Artie Cohen mystery is a puissant tale that focuses on the decade-old aftermath of the collapse of Communism on New York and London. Artie remains a charming but wild mix while his girlfriend Lily seems stronger than previously depicted. The who-done-it is entertaining as Artie falls in love with the decadent, exciting, and pendulum-like swinging London. Though Reggie Nadelson makes Artie seem too lyrical at times, this doesn't prevent fans or readers new to this exciting series (see RED HOT BLUES and HOT POPPIES) from enjoying the maturing of the characters as the tale twists into new areas.