Amazon.com Review
There's something very old-fashioned about Robert J. Randisi's
East of the Arch. While its serial-killer plot certainly offers some gripping moments, the characters--from the edge-treading lead cop to its self-absorbed politicians--are straight out of the How to Write Police Procedurals manual. And its principal perpetrator bears not even a hint of a redeeming quality. That Randisi nonetheless manages to keep one reading attests to the time-oiled ease of his prose.
Joe Keough (introduced in 1995's Alone with the Dead) is a former New York City homicide detective, now living in St. Louis and doing mind-numbing security work for that city's mayor. But East of the Arch finds his expertise in solving serial slayings needed across the Mississippi, in the bad-rep Illinois burg of East St. Louis, where two women have been murdered during the forcible removal of their unborn children. Struggling to avoid myriad distractions, including a job offer in Washington, D.C., and rumors of abuse within the prospective foster family of a boy he helped more than a year before (see In the Shadow of the Arch), the instinct-driven Keough and an eager young local detective search for a sociopathic misogynist who is already nurturing his next victim--"his crowning achievement."
Though Randisi's history as an administrative assistant with the NYPD informs his storytelling, East of the Arch is too predictable, with a rapid summing-up that wastes the tension it had been progressively building. The 40-year-old Keough, an unsettled diabetic-in-denial, has all the makings of a thoroughbred series figure, but this novel doesn't give him the challenge he needs to show his strengths. --J. Kingston Pierce
From Publishers Weekly
In his fourth action-packed outing (after 2000's Blood on the Arch), St. Louis cop Joe Keough finds himself embattled on all sides. Just as he's about to chuck his job, Joe is assigned to the East St. Louis PD to assist in investigating an especially nasty serial killer, a blood-curdling creep who preys on pregnant women. Unaware that he has become a pawn in one of the mayor's political games, Joe faces the hostility of the local police, who resent his "interference." In addition, two old nemeses, Angela Mason and Jack Gail of Internal Affairs, are willing to do absolutely anything to destroy his career. Then he gets sidetracked looking into a wife/child beater. As Noel Coward said, "No good deed goes unpunished." No sooner has Joe put the lid on the abuser than the guy is found murdered, leaving Joe the chief suspect. Much of this distracts from the more compelling hunt for the serial killer, and eventually Randisi gets back to business. Keough is no cliche cop, but an engaging character with a welcome streak of compassion. His partner, Det. Marc Jeter, a young officer with a fondness for quoting Mark Twain, makes a splendid addition to the cast, and one hopes he will return. Randisi's well-paced procedural keeps the reader asking what happens next right up to the logical and effective finale.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
