Pictures [Hardcover]

Robert Daley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 2006

Vince Conte was a New York cop until he punched the senior officer having an affair with his wife. Forced to resign, he’s bored by his work for a private security firm.

 

Tony Murano was a tennis player dating the daughter of royalty. Then his career faltered and his girlfriend got pregnant. Now Murano is under his father-in-law’s thumb, unable to find the investors he needs to become a businessman in his own right. When tabloids all over Europe publish pictures of his poolside tryst with an anonymous woman on the day his wife gave birth to the royal heir, Murano’s father-in-law is all too glad to dismiss him. His young wife is heartbroken, though, and her mother decides to investigate. Who arranged the photos? What was the true motive?

Assigned to the job, Conte finds himself a target as he follows a trail of photographs and money that takes him to Italy, Amsterdam, Monaco, and back.



 



 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 17th novel from former NYPD deputy commissioner Daley falls short of his previous work (Year of the Dragon and the excellent nonfiction account Prince of the City). His new hero, Vince Conte, is marking time as a PI for a security firm after he ruined a promising career with the NYPD by assaulting the deputy police commissioner for carrying on with Conte's gorgeous anchorwoman wife. Conte is doing unglamorous inquiries into employee theft when his company is retained to identify the plotters behind an extortion plot in a small European duchy. The unknown parties have already succeeded in breaking up the marriage of the duke's daughter by publishing compromising photos of her husband's poolside tryst. The clichéd European characters coupled with the absence of suspense and plot twists add up to an outing that lacks Daley's customary grit. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Tony Murano is a lower-echelon tennis pro married to the princess of one of Europe's "little" monarchies who is pregnant with the heir to the throne. Unfortunately, the king doesn't like Tony and constantly reminds him of his commoner status. With his wife in the final stages of the pregnancy, Tony is caught on film in a compromising position with another woman. The photos quickly appear in every scandal rag in Europe, Tony is excised from the family, and his wife is heartbroken. To mitigate her daughter's despair, the queen hires New York's premier detective agency to determine who set the trap for Tony. The firm assigns former NYPD cop Vince Conte to the case. Conte finds the woman in the photos, convinces her to cooperate with his investigation, and then, shockingly, finds himself falling in love with her. Daley, author of Prince of the City (1978) and, more recently, the outstanding Enemy of God (2005), weaves a compelling love story within a conventional thriller, which is marred by an improbable conclusion. This isn't Daley's best book, but it's still well worth reading. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (November 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151012296
• ISBN-13: 978-0151012299
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,374,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Daley At His Best, May 7, 2008

By 

Michael L. Slavin "HardBopper" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pictures: A Novel (Paperback)

I've read and enjoyed most if not all of the authors novels. Typically he writes very realistically. This book was ,too over the top. The hero, former NYPD Captain Vincent Conte, had been on a fast track to move up in the department. Unfortunately, on the way, he discovered his wife was having an affair with a Deputy Chief. He confronted the Chief with his fists and was forced to resign. He then began working for a private investigation company. An assignment came up from a small duchy in the Alps near France, Monaco and Italy. Scandal and murders ensued involving The Duke,His Daughter,His son-law, a photographer, a model and a corrupt Italian detective. Conte ends up falling in love with the model. He goes past his assignment as he tries to come to the bottom of things. All in all, the plot is interesting and fast moving. My problems with this read are that I never particularly liked the character of the hero cop Conte. The plot lost reality as he operated in the tiny duchy as though he was back in NYC. Imagine this. He was trying to escape at the top of a mountain peak with snow, cold and wind. He was just wearing a business suit. He got caught in an avalanche. Naturally in this book he survived. I think the author is better at straight forward crime novels with a bit less romance.

1.0 out of 5 stars Listless, November 1, 2011

By 

Tghu Verd - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pictures: A Novel (Paperback)

I can't recall what prompted me to buy Daley's "Pictures", but as a crime thriller it was strangely listless and I think the underlying reason was Daley's need to invent a European country and continually glance at it sideways as if to check it was still there.

It seemed that creative geographic energy stole from plotting and character development, because nothing quite rang true - most of the motivations were cartoonist at best, and not even stereotypical bad at worst.

In particular, Augustin II, a heavy weight protagonist and hereditary ruler of the invented Grand Duchy, seems contradictorily too simplistic and yet way smart to dominate events in the way that Daley manoeuvres.

But it is the world weary somewhat hero, Vince Conte who I found particularly annoying. Having side swiped his police career he's lost in the world until he spies the pretty damsel in distress. Not even the large dose of introspection and suspicion of his own behaviour - which I usually like in novels - covers up the cracks in Conte's overly cynical viewpoint.

So, not even a "by the numbers" book. Daley has written over two dozen novels, mostly fiction (and a handful with co-authors) so I'm thinking this dud is a one off. I'll probably read another of his books just to check, but that's only if it comes to me, after "Pictures" I am not going to actively search for it.

1.0 out of 5 stars Embarrassingly bad, August 5, 2009

By 

Victoria Davis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pictures: A Novel (Paperback)

After spending 30 minutes erasing all the penciled corrections and question marks from my copy of Pictures, I decided that anyone who's considering buying this book deserves at least one warning.

Inane remarks, boring repetitions, unappealing characters, poor scenic descriptions, and annoying errors abound. (When I drove from Monte Carlo to the Italian border, I went east; my atlas agrees. In Pictures, the Riviera road from Monaco to Italy goes west. And that's only one example.) The "romance" is appalling. The dialog would be laughable if it weren't so irritating.

I got the impression that Daley himself was bored to tears with this story and only wanted to get it over with. His previous books must be much better, but Pictures doesn't inspire me to try them.