Hoax: A Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

Robert K. Tanenbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 24, 2005

The shooting death of a rap mogul is the first link in a sinister chain ensnaring New York District Attorney Butch Karp. With his wife and daughter on a New Mexico retreat, Karp is left to fend for his teenaged sons and himself. Descending into the hip-hop underworld to prosecute a killer, Karp comes head-to-head wih Andrew Kane, a powerful would-be mayor whose corrupt web of influence leads Karp to unveil a shocking church sex-abuse scandal. In a world where secrets can be buried for an often-deadly price, Karp discovers there is no safe haven.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Readers of this long-running series starring New York Assistant D.A. Butch Karp and his lethal but lovable wife Marlene Ciampi will wonder why three-quarters of their 16th adventure is devoted to a rehash of their personal history, a dissection of their tangled psyches, and a tedious retelling of events that have little bearing on what passes for the plot of this one. Once again, it's a story of higher-up cover-ups of both political and priestly evil--in this case, a candidate for mayor who's as murderous and venal as ever was, and a serial pedophile killer who happens to be a Catholic cleric. Unlike the previous books in Tanenbaum's oeuvre, this one lacks the skill and verve of Michael Gruber (Tropic of Night), the uncredited writer largely responsible for making the series come alive on the page. Whoever took over needs to learn the difference between telling and showing before he or she tackles the next in Tanenbaum's series. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

One sure way to engage reader sympathy in a crime novel is to involve the hero's family; in Roger "Butch" Karp's 15 earlier adventures (Resolved; Absolute Rage; etc.), the DA's family has paid dearly for this inclusion. Wife Marlene is disfigured from a letter bomb, 11-year-old son Giancarlo has been blinded by a would-be assassin, and daughter, Lucy, was abducted twice: "His entire family seemed to attract danger as picnics did ants." Marlene is attending a Taos art therapy school, healing the psychic toll of dispensing vigilante justice and thwarting terrorists. Lucy is there, too, leaving dad behind to battle "evil incarnate" in the form of Andrew Kane, a sociopath running for mayor of New York. Kane's pursuits include insider trading, drugs, prostitution, money laundering, arms sales and extortion. Characters include a killer priest, corrupt policemen, a gallant American-Indian cop and mole people who crawl out of the city's sewers to haunt the night, among others. Tanenbaum keeps all these balls in the air while lecturing on the evils of racism, the plight of the modern Indian, the value of honor, the evils of gangsta rap and much, much more. It is by turns boring, insightful, pedestrian, silly, maudlin, exhausting and exciting.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 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: 640 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Star (May 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743452895
• ISBN-13: 978-0743452892
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,010,730 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert K. Tanenbaum is one of the country's most successful trial lawyers -- he has never lost a felony case. He has been homicide bureau chief for the New York District Attorney's Office and deputy chief counsel to the congressional committee investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Most recently, he has taught Advanced Criminal Procedure atthe University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law. His previous works include the novels Escape, Malice, Fury, Hoax, Resolved, Enemy Within, and Absolute Rage and two true-crime books, The Piano Teacher: The True Story of a Psychotic Killer and Badge of the Assassin.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Okay, a hoax, I get it!, January 12, 2005

By 

W. P. Strange "Bill's shelf" (Williamstown, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hoax: A Novel (Tanenbaum, Robert) (Hardcover)

Those in the know have known for a long time that the real talent behind Tanenbaum's Butch Karp books has been Michael Gruber. Like many of the reviewers here I knew that Gruber had gone out on his own after a split with Tanenbaum, and like them I was willing to give the name on the cover a chance to prove his own talent. I'm sorry to say I was disappointed. From the first page it is abundantly clear that the style has suffered, and Butch Karp has hit the skids. The question is now, did Tanenbaum do any of the writing or plotting of the early Karp novels, or is he only a front man? The quick answer may indeed be, yes.

Butch and his vigilanty wife have slowly become annoying, cloying and just too predictable. It is time to put them away and explore new fields, "Hoax" has rung the death knell for a once interesting pair of characters and plots that made sense and writing that galluped with tension and drama.

"Hoax", as the title, is obviously a pun. The Karp series has been a gigantic "hoax" and now the truth is revealed. To be sure, do what I did and check out Michael Gruber's first novel with his name on the cover, "Trpic of Night", and you'll get the joke. Gruber was the masyermind, the talent - the "writer" all along. For the same kind of former great read just look for a different name on the cover and a new, more vibrant hero named, Paz.

Tanenbaum, Karp, etal are history and that is too bad we say good bye to an old friend and hello to a new, more interesting series by the true master, Michael Gruber.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars a Milli Vanilli experience, January 20, 2005

By 

sarahbellum (MA, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hoax: A Novel (Tanenbaum, Robert) (Hardcover)

I have been a faithful and devoted reader of Tanenbaum's books for a long time. He was the one thriller writer whose books I would pounce on and buy (or beg or borrow or steal) without even bothering to read the blurb on the inside flap.

Imagine my surprise when I started reading this newest Tanenbaum, only to discover that it was, apparently, a counterfeit. Within a few pages I had the eerie sensation that though the characters had familiar names, they were simply not the same people I had come to know and love. And the style! Yikes! One of the great pleasure of a Tanenbaum novel has always been the clever repartee, the tongue-in-cheek wit, the terrific use of irony. Lo and behold, all had disappeared from sight. Instead, what I found was clumsy and--dare I say it--amateurish writing that should never have seen the light of day. Marlene, my all-time favorite character in any thriller, has turned from a stylish, smart, sassy New Yorker to a rather boring and wooden two-dimensional parody of herself. Butch is reduced to maundering about the past. The kids are mere shadows of their former selves, and the plotting, sequencing, and dialogue are not worthy of a high-school creative writing class.

So I quickly concluded that Tanenbaum must have hired a ghost to churn this one out. Then I learned from the Internet, to my horror, that all the wit and pizzazz of the earlier books had been due to the REAL writer, Michael Gruber, who had a parting of the ways with the fake writer, whose only claim to fame is that his name is in fact Robert Tanenbaum. He may be a decent lawyer, I don't know, but he is no writer. So the problem is not that Tanenbaum HIRED a ghost, it's that the real writer of the old Tanenbaums finally came to his senses and struck out on his own.

Wow. I feel betrayed. This is SO Milli Vanilli. Don't buy this book unless you are teaching a class in creative writing and ethics and need an example of how NOT to do things. Otherwise, just figure that Butch and Marlene and Lucy and Zak and Giancarlo and Guma and all the other wonderful, complex, brilliant characters died on 9/11. Mourn their loss, and then start reading Gruber's books.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Boring, boring, boring, August 27, 2004

By 

Stewart - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hoax: A Novel (Tanenbaum, Robert) (Hardcover)

I have read every single Butch & Marlene novel and always eagerly await the release of the next chapter in their saga. Alas, this may be their final chapter for me. Gone are the brilliantly drawn and interesting characters, the sarcastic banter, the exciting twists and turns, leaving pages of needless detail and outlandish resolutions. After reading about Lucy and the cliff I closed my book and have yet to reopen it. Please, Mr. Tanenbaum, pay Michael Gruber whatever you have to and bring him back. Your new co-author can write, but he can't write Butch and Marlene as we all know and love them!