Amazon.com Review
Nobody did police corruption as crisply and with such obvious delight as Caunitz. Just out in paperback,
Pigtown is one of the very best thrillers by a fine writer who died in 1996. Many of the details in this story of high-level villainy at the NYPD will ring true because they come from an actual case, and Caunitz was smart enough to realize that he didn't have to gild these nasty lilies. Instead, he concentrated his energies on making Lt. Matthew Stuart as strong and accessible as ever as he traces the killer of a small-time mob figure right upstairs to the top of One Police Plaza.
--This text refers to the
Mass Market Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
The gritty realism of Caunitz's new novel (after Cleopatra Gold), as in his earlier ones, reflects the more than two decades he spent with the NYPD. Caunitz's cops sound and act like the real thing, and his villains, while occasionally over the top, are fetchingly sinister (only the extravagant, mostly illicit sex here comes off as more fantasy than reportage). The murder of small-time hood Beansy Rutolo in the Brooklyn neighborhood dubbed "Pigtown" has a special significance for Lieutenant Matthew Stuart: the deceased's unexpected testimony once saved Matt's father from being kicked off the job for political reasons. Now the effort to track down Beansy's killers is revealing corruption that reaches deep into the Department-and goes back years. Matt is struggling with assorted personal demons too-the tragedy that ended his marriage; his secret relationship with a superior officer known as the "Ice Maiden"; and an attempt to frame him for dereliction of duty. Caunitz's prose is flat-footed, weighed down with mundane detail, and his theme of ancient, festering corruption was old hat when Teddy Roosevelt was the city's police commissioner. Still, his feel for cops and cons matches anyone's, as evidenced once again by this flawed but still engaging novel, a police blotter come to life. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
