Customer Reviews

Hostile Takeovers (Leal and Hart)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Sergeant Frank Leal isn't exactly having a smooth time in his life or career at the moment. "Hostile Takeovers," the second novel in Michael A. Black's police procedural series featuring partners Leal and Olivia "Ollie" Hart, will pique your interest from the very start.

While Leal is on a stakeout, his informant in a drug turf war turns up dead, Louis "The Lip" Beasley's ear cut off by the hit man who iced him. Saddled with an inexperienced investigator (Howard Lindsey) as his temporary partner, things can only get worse for Leal both on the job and off.

Frank is more than a good cop, he's a decent human being who feels a responsibility in finding Beasley's killer. Before he can get a foothold, Lt. Dexter Card makes it clear The Lip's case takes a backburner to those with higher clearance potential and even better press. Reports and headlines are what matter most to Lieu, regardless of how the morally motivated Leal feels.

The drug lords and their diametrically opposed bodyguards are squaring up to shed blood in their war to win the streets, while Leal and several of his police compatriots are assigned to break a ring of violent robberies by the Radio Bandits. Frank's doing as well as he can' despite being pulled in a few directions.

All the while, Ollie Hart is stuck on a special detail in nearby Robertsville, prompting Leal to lobby his captain (Cpt. Sean O'Herlieghy) for her return to Investigations. Robertsville isn't all it seems, either, with its mayor initially providing some comedic counterpoint to the escalating danger, despite his hiding something much darker behind his New Orleans' style restaurant.

Personal issues for Leal and Hart will not quietly lie in the background as they struggle with their respective assignments. After an attempt on her life, Leal does his best to ensure the safety of his girlfriend, Sharon Devain, an assistant state's attorney who's ambushed outside the courthouse. Body-builder Hart, while training as hard as she can for the next meet, uncovers a health issue that could spell tragedy and end her competitions for good.

The storylines here are logically woven into a book that will have you quickly hooked and eagerly turning pages. Black's style strongly reminded me of his fellow cop-turned-author Joseph Wambaugh, especially in his manner of capturing the essence of each character's personality. Every player in this tight, well-written procedural speaks with a clear voice. There's even a moment or two reminiscent of Wambaugh's "The Choir Boys," which I found extremely appealing.

Black has plot, pacing and detail down to a fine science here, but he has another forte: writing relationships. When his characters interact, such as Leal and Devain, it's very genuine - no picture perfect solutions, just real people with their own emotions about what's taking place around them. I find that aspect of his work absolutely refreshing; he gives his characters room to act and react appropriately.

You'll want to keep turning pages to experience how a cop on the streets crafts an ending which leaves absolutely no loose ends, providing more than enough action near the end to have you on the edge of your seat. It's gritty, it's real - the Radio Bandits were based on an actual case - and you won't want to miss this novel.

I just finished reading Michael A. Black's new Leal and Hart mystery, Hostile Takeovers. I really enjoyed it, even more than the debut novel in that series, Random Victim, which was itself an excellent read. This series is classified as a police procedural, meaning that the main characters are policemen and -women, and you follow them as they go about solving a crime. Frank Leal is a sargeant for the Cook County Sheriff's Police; Olivia ("Ollie") Hart was his partner, but they've been separated into different units.

In this book, the two of them are working on different cases, but the cases are linked-though they don't know that. One of Leal's snitches turns up dead in the city of Robertsville on Chicago's southside, just as he was preparing to give the police information on a drug lord in the area. Hart is also working in Robertsville, where the corrupted police department had to be turned out and replaced. Until the replacements are trained, the area is relying on officers like Hart to maintain order. Though Leal is pulled off investigating the case in favor of tracking a roaming band of thieves who rob convenience stores, he won't give up the case entirely. Good thing. The snitch was the victim of a freelance killer hired by a drug lord who plans to take over a nearby drug lord's territory. As each drug lord plans to eliminate the other, the situation turns deadly for all in Robertsville, putting Hart, Leal and many of their fellow officers in danger.

This book has several stories going on at once, but Black is a master storyteller, and by the end all the loose ends have been sewn together in a great, tightly scripted ending. As a policeman, Black knows the dirt and grit of the Chicago area, and his writing is authentic. Don't miss this paperback original, out from Leisure Books.

The thrilling police crime novel Hostile Takeovers comes out slugging right from the get go. "Lips" Beasley, Frank Leal's informant gets wacked. The adventure that the book's author Michael A. Black takes Leal and Olivia Hart on is an intriguing fifteen rounds of events that are raw and suspenseful. When "Lips'" body is found, Leal sets out on a mission that is derailed by the radio bandits.
This character driven, emotional and true to life novel only gets better when a drive-by shooting and a life threatening illness happens to two of the most important women in Leal's life, respectively. To add insult to injury, at the sound of the bell Leal takes center ring as an unexpected ten count comes into play with the sudden illness of his best friend Sean O'Herlieghy.
Speaking objectively as a thirty year law enforcement veteran of the San Diego Police Department, and former brown belt student of the martial arts, I know all about the reach of the long arm of the law. However, Michael Black shows us the comparable reach by Leal's opponents.
On this punching bag, all the highs and lows were hit with expert technique and continued solid throughout. At the speed bag ending, this well crafted story's timing will have you at the rope boundaries, as it ties together nicely in an action packed crescendo.

In this sequel to "Random Victim" Sergeant Francisco Leal is more than a little annoyed that his partner, Olivia (Ollie) Hart isn't back working with him. Instead, when she isn't working for her upcoming competition as a female body builder, she is stuck on some sort of special detail over in Robertsville, Illinois. Years of corruption have caused the local police force to be dismissed, and for now until the first class graduates from the academy, Cook County Sheriff's Police are pulling patrol duty in Robertsville.

That leaves Leal running a major surveillance operation involving a snitch without help that he can really count on. The snitch, known as the "Lip" is supposed to make a controlled buy in front of Leal and his team. With the snitch being closely connected to a powerful and very successful drug dealer there is potential of rolling up quite an operation. Unfortunately for Leal and the snitch, the snitch's cover is blown and he is killed. This sparks retaliation and despite numerous characters and many storylines, eventually Leal and Hart begin to deal with the escalating turf war.

A police officer himself, Michal Black clearly knows his subject well and uses every detail and nuance possible in the novel. An extremely slow moving police procedural, the read spends considerable time off on various secondary storylines where readers are subjected to often actions and characters that have little or nothing to do with the main storyline of the execution murder of the snitch, politics and the drug war. Such sideways trips far from the main storyline have the capacity to bore the reader considerably who should be forgiven for frequently muttering "get on with it."

When Author Michael A. Black focuses on the main storyline in "Hostile Takeovers" he delivers a solid tale which somewhat salvages the book despite being devoid of human emotion. Even the health scare of Olivia which is a classic cliché and should bring out some realistic character emotion for the reader comes across entirely flat. In this case and others throughout the meandering novel, the characters spend considerable amounts of time telling readers how they feel with little time actually showing readers real human emotion. There is a distant flat quality of writing throughout the 353 novel that reminds one of the sterility of reading a law document.

Despite the theoretically complimentary comparison to Joseph Wambaugh in some reviews, the only thing these two authors actually in common is that they both use their law enforcement backgrounds to write police procedurals. Regarding character development, use of plotlines and emotions, as well as style of writing and a myriad of other issues, these two authors are as opposite as they possibly could be. Such a contrived positive comparison does a huge disservice to both authors with readers hurt by making buying and reading decisions based on such faulty comparisons.



Book provided by PJ Nunn, publicist and owner of BreakThrough Promotions in exchange for my objective review.


Kevin R. Tipple (copyright) 2009