From Publishers Weekly
Though not an entry in his outstanding Charlie Muffin spy series, Freemantle's 22nd novel proves one of his very finest yet, an impressive blend of full-bodied characters and nerve-plucking action. Fallen together once more are top FBI supervisor William Cowley and Moscow investigator Dimitri Danilov, first seen in tandem in The Button Man. Dimitri is now an outcast in Moscow's Organized Crime Bureau, blocked from taking on departmental corruption when he's called to Washington by Cowley to help solve the murder of a Russian diplomat quite likely committed by the Russian mafia, source of the very corruption Dmitri wants to fight back home. As he and Cowley find, the Russian mafia has linked up with Cosa Nostra, which is on its way to becoming a worldwide crime cartel. Danilov and Cowley rake through the Russian mobsters entrenched in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach, then head for Moscow, where Danilov's chiefs have been bought and obstruction is rampant; meanwhile, Moscow's mob families hit each other and jockey for supremacy. Their investigation takes the Yank and the Russian, working together and separately, to a nighttime shootout in the Sicilian countryside, loot in Swiss banks and two fantastic faceoffs with Moscow's top hoods. It all ends in a tremendous climax that leaves tragic echoes and may be Freemantle's most affecting ever.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Freemantle has no peer when it comes to writing espionage thrillers. His latest book is as good as they get, with Russia and the U.S. cooperating--yes, cooperating--to track down the who, how, and why behind the bizarre, Mafia-style murder of a Russian diplomat in Washington. Dimitri Danilov, the stolid, solid Soviet cop who's having trouble coping with the "new" Russia and his own personal problems, teams up--as he did in Freemantle's earlier
The Button Man (1993)--with William Cowley, semirenegade FBI investigator who has an alcohol problem on top of his tough, politically sensitive job inside the Beltway. The two find themselves globe-trotting, from Geneva to Brighton Beach to Sicily to Moscow, in hopes of unearthing the brilliantly conceived, highly complex, big-bucks-at-stake plot behind the brutal murder. Freemantle includes a mile-a-minute action, a mind-boggling story line, edge-of-your-seat suspense, subtle wit, and two heroes whose occasional feet of clay don't keep them from being superb investigators and genuinely good human beings. An absolute must for every collection.
Emily Melton
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
