Rush [Mass Market Paperback]

Kim Wozencraft (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 1991

Partnered with a top undercover narc, waitress-turned-rookie cop Kristen Cates falls in love with her partner and her job, but is ill-prepared for the things she has to do to stay alive. Reissue. Movie tie-in. NYT.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While working undercover in Texas, 21-year-old narcotics agent Kristen Cates realizes that she and her lover/partner, Jim Raynor, have become drug addicts. " In total command of her material, its language and procedures, and without resort to sensationalism, Wozencraft, a former undercover cop, writes of a world in which pain . . . is nearly palpable," said PW. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Lacking cohesion and slow moving to begin with, this story of drug addiction, police corruption, and attempted murder becomes almost painfully intense. Even before attending police academy, Kristen Cates works as an undercover narcotics agent in Pasadena, Texas, falls in love with detective Jim Raynor, and learns to do drugs. Much of the book details the couple's debilitating, pressured routine of hanging out, making buys, gathering (and fabricating) evidence, and ultimately testifying in court against their "friends." Wozencraft's first novel is convincing and realistic, and although it is sometimes a mite heavy-handed, it is always disturbing. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/89.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Ivy Books; Mti Rep edition (April 29, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804107890
• ISBN-13: 978-0804107891
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,603,609 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real thing--and I should know, April 25, 2007

By 

D-con "D-con" (Baton Rouge,, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rush (Hardcover)

Like Kim Wozencraft, I too am an ex-cop and an ex-con, . There are two things I can comment on. One is how authentic it is, how well it portrays the life of a cop with a drug habit. The second is how well it's written. For authenticity, all I can tell you is that I was also a cop with a drug habit and it doesn't get any more real than Ms. Wozencraft's book. If you want to vicariously experience something that no sane person would want to go through in real life, read this book. Read this book. As far as how well it's written, no big complaints there. It was a bestseller, as well as being made into a pretty popular movie. That should tell you what the general public thinks. As far as the critics, they seem to have liked the book as well. If there were any new-writer mistakes in the book that would have normally drawn the scorn of the critics, they were lost in the grit, which the critics admired. They liked the book because it was real. I don't much like the book anymore for the same reason. I lived that life too. I recently tried to re-read the book and it gave me night sweats. It was too nerve-wracking for me. That's how authentic it is. If what you want is--as the critics love to say--gritty reality, this is your book. Get the book. It'll be money well-spent.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intense and Fascinating, November 28, 2004

By 

A Discerning Reader (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rush (Paperback)

What a disturbing little read this was! Wozencraft exposes us to a world most of us never knew or even imagined--the blurry lines between the good guys and the bad guys in the war on drugs.

What makes this novel so disturbing is its ring of authenticity; its truthtelling grows until they final pages, when the moral of the story is exposed: 1) situational ethics applies in settings where it is morally wrong yet sanctioned by the law; 2) life is often not fair, and the evil often prosper.

Her writing skills are excellent, and her ability to write expertly about these complex situations in the first person makes the novel intense and almost too painful to continue. She has real ability, although I'm not sure I want to read about such a depressing and sordid world about which she writes so capably.

4.0 out of 5 stars Can't tell where right ends and wrong begins., September 20, 2010

By 

Bob Hoskins (WI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Rush (Paperback)

So if you had a job in a liquor store and you spend all evening drinking the liquor how long do you think your job would last?

Now, you have a job as an undercover narcotics officer. Your job is to buy dope so as to set up the dealers for take downs. No dealer will sell to you unless you fix right there the first time. It's inevitable you or your partner/colleague are going to get hooked.

This is a good, well written novel. The main character is a young girl who joins the police force and ends up as an undercover "narc". Her partner, Jim, soon becomes her lover and the two of them move in together and do as much dope, cocaine, meth, qualuudes, crank, pcp etc etc as they buy. Their collective reasoning is that it goes with the job.

Problem is, undercover narcs, even though it's common knowledge they do, are NOT supposed to sample the contraband. When her partner gets sick (spun) Kristen approaches her chief. He now knows illegality is taking place but, on his quest for promotion, he's torn tween getting the "busts" and bringing in the sick guy.

From then on it's about departmental politics, and you have to ask yourself, where does the line get drawn between doing wrong to do what's right? Ultimately the many departments of law enforcement are tasked with stopping society implode on itself. But, that task in itself demands that the lines be blurred once you put the good guys in amongst the bad.

Great book which I recommend. Well done to Kim Wozencraft.