The Con Man's Daughter [Hardcover]

Ed Dee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 2003

Ex NYPD detective Eddie Dunne must search his own past for clues when his 35-year old daughter Kate is kidnapped from her suburban New York home. her suburban New York home. While the cops wait for ransom demands and hunt down a stolen car seen leaving the driveway, Dunne is a step ahead. He's sure that the disappearance has to do with his previous employment as a general fixer for Anatoly Lukin, legendary Brighton Beach crime boss. And while Lukin was involved in non-violent activities like Medicare fraud and gas gouging, his chief rival, Yuri Burodenko, engineered sales of Russian military weapons and was capable of extreme violence. The search turns more desperate when Dunne's former partner's head lands on his front yard . Now Dunne will do anything to find Burodenko, but there's another gangster with a score to settle with Eddie....- Ed Dee's four-books series following NYPD detectives Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory has nearly 450,000 hard cover and paperback copies in print and received enthusiastic praise from such national publications as the "New York's Times, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, and the Boston "Globe, among others.- Ed Dee's most recent novel, "Nightbird (Warner,1999), was a Featured Alternate of the Mystery Guild and received critical acclaim from the "New York Times Book Review, Philadelphia Inquirer, Orlando Sentinel, and other publications.- Ed Dee retired as a lieutenant after 20 years with the MYPD'S Organized Crime Unit. Then he earned an MFA in Writing at Arizona State University. His debut novel, 14 "Peck Slip (Warner, 1994), was a "New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

NYPD vet Dee is known for the authenticity of his New York City police procedurals (14 Peck Slip; Bronx Angel; etc.), and his new stand-alone thriller is no exception. Abandoning past NYPD heroes Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory, Dee introduces ex-cop, ex-prize-fighter Eddie "God help me... I love a brawl" Dunn. After being kicked out of the NYPD along with partner Paulie "the Priest" Caruso, Eddie spends the next decade as a courier for Russian gangster Anatoly Lukin. Though retired now, Eddie still knows the secrets of the Russian mob, so when his 35-year-old daughter, Kate, is kidnapped, he figures the Brighton Beach boys are behind the snatch. "The word hardened didn't do these guys justice. Decades of frigid weather, deprivation, and sanctioned cruelty had forced them to develop a level of toughness and cunning beyond anyone's ability to understand." All signs point to crime lord Yuri Borodenko, so Eddie responds by firebombing Yuri's Rolls Royce (with one of the mobster's minions in the front seat). Borodenko retaliates by bouncing Paulie Caruso's severed head off Eddie's front door. Then things get really ugly. Along with gritty realism, Dee gives the reader plenty of useful criminal information: how to set up a pump-and-dump Wall Street scheme, hijack a car, hire a Hasidic Jew to smuggle Ecstasy, rip off Medicare, launder money and spot a two-way mirror, for starters. Eddie eventually bulls his way through the mob and rescues his daughter, but not before surviving a number of horrendous beatings and a couple of grenade attacks. Down and dirty crime fiction doesn't get any better than this.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Nerve-racking...dramatic...Dec knows how to capture a New York moment."

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press (November 12, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892967943
• ISBN-13: 978-0892967940
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,917,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Con Man's Daughter, November 25, 2003

By 

Richard Brunton (Yorktown Hgts., NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Con Man's Daughter (Hardcover)

Another fabulous book by one of my favorite authors, Eddie Dee. I have read all his past books with Anthony Ryan and Joe Gregory as hero's but this one was extra special for me since I am a product of Yonkers, NY upbringing. It was a wonderful place, at the time to grow up and all those memories came flooding back as Eddie would use a lot of Yonkers references throughout this now book. It was a book that I could not put down once I got into it. The drama builds beautifully and the insights Eddie provides about detective work were tremendously interesting. I can't wait for his next book to arrive.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dee at his Best!, December 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Con Man's Daughter (Hardcover)

I have been a Dee fan since his first book- 14 Peck Slip, although I miss Anthony Ryan & Joe Gregory from his previous books- The Con Man's Daughter is the best one yet! Eddie Dunne is an incredible character from his remorse over past deeds to his fierce love for his family - Sean Penn wake up and smell the Oscar this character has your name ( with some make-up ) written all over him! There were moments while reading this book that tore at my heart- Eddie thinking about how his daughter's green shirt set off her red hair just as her grammer school tartan dress once had. And how she called out Daddy something she had not called him for a very long time. Dee write's female characters so well, I especially liked Eddie's sister-in-law Martha, and Babsie -well what can I say- she is the best- Hey Jamie Lee Curtis wanna hear And the Oscar goes to - You? Check Babsie out! There were also times that I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt there is a part about his daughter and a pogo stick- just great! This book is Ed Dee's moment in the Sun!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Coney Island's Not All Fun and Games, January 18, 2005

By 

Untouchable (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Con Man's Daughter (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a violent story that is carefully constructed, not a page turning thriller but a compelling mystery that had me desperate to find out the story behind the kidnapping. In essence what we witness is a man who will stop at absolutely nothing (and he goes through hell - believe me) in his bid to get his daughter back. I was starting to feel the effects of his struggle myself by the end of the book.
From the beachfront of Coney Island in the heart of Russian mafiya territory and on up to Yonkers The Con Man's Daughter is set in the darker, more dangerous neighborhoods of New York. This is a brooding novel with violence only a matter of eye contact with the wrong person away. Ed Dee immerses us in the dark world controlled by the Russian mafiya, visits with Italian gangsters and reminisces through an ex-cop who gladly bent the law whenever it suited him.

Eddie Dunne is 54 years old, an ex-cop, a father and a grandfather. Since leaving the force he has worked a variety of jobs but the most notable was as a chauffeur for Anatoly Lukin, a Russian businessman considered by the police to be a crime lord.

When Eddie Dunne witnesses the kidnapping of his daughter he can only think of one person who could be responsible. Yuri Borodenko is the powerful head of a Russian mafiya family that is taking control of the area around Coney Island in New York. He is in direct competition with Anatoly Lukin, Eddie's former boss. Could it be that Borodenko is finally repaying some kind of vendetta from the days he was involved in mafiya business?

Eddie uses all of his experience as an ex-cop and his connections with the underworld to try to get a handle on where his daughter is being held. He has added motivation to find his daughter apart from the obvious fact that she's his daughter and he loves her very much, and that motivation comes in the form of his six year old grad-daughter Grace. He must be ever mindful that the Russians could just as readily snatch Grace as they did Kate.

When the days pass and no ransom demand or contact of any kind comes from the kidnappers, Eddie is forced to the conclusion that the kidnapping must be some sort of revenge against him for something he had done in the past. Important busts he made as a cop, criminals he once associated with, any number of things could be used as motivation against him. But which one is it? And how can he find out the answer?

Rather than the more expected feeling of desperation that would normally be typical of a kidnapping case the pace of The Con Man's Daughter is more like the slow pacing of a caged tiger, filled with pent up energy and rage. His movements are controlled but rather than wait for instructions from the police or the FBI, he's just going to go ahead and solve this one on his own...in his own way.

As Eddie gradually homes in on his daughter's captors you can sense that that energy that has slowly been leaking out is about to be unleashed in a terrible fury. Indeed, there is nothing subtle about Eddie's methods right from the start. He is not a believer in reasoning with someone when intimidation can be used just as effectively, or if that doesn't work then bribery may be used. Of course, he is not afraid to skip straight to the old "beat the information out of them" method.

Ed Dee has mixed the dangerous world of the organized criminal with the close-knit law abiding family displaying a stark contrast between good and evil. But then he blurs that line through the persona of Eddie Dunne and the ramifications of his past that come back to haunt him. It's up to us to decide whether Eddie is a guilty man or a victim.