Amazon.com Review
Before his strange death in 1997 (his body was found hanging outside his Chicago office), Eugene Izzi wrote some of the best crime fiction in recent memory. His hard-edged books like
A Matter of Honor and
The Criminalist are told from the criminal's point of view.
Safe Harbor was first published in England in 1995, when Izzi was having trouble finding an American outlet. It's a familiar story: the mobster who becomes an informer for the best of reasons (in this case to protect his child) and then enters a witness protection program and goes on to lead a blameless life. Mark Torrence (called Tommy Torelli in his criminal days) is threatened in his new and secret life by a ghost from the past--a vengeful hit man named James Bracken. This vicious and depraved killer has his own very good and perversely logical reasons for hunting down Torrence.
What gives the book new life and lots of energy is the way Izzi develops his characters using small strokes of reality. Even the incredibly obnoxious next-door neighbor who accidentally leaks Torrence's true identity is made human because we get to peek into his daily life.
Not having any more new books by Izzi to look forward to is a great loss, but the late arrival of Safe Harbor makes it a bit more bearable. --Dick Adler
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Crisply drawn lives of violence and redemption propel this fully dimensional novel of organized crime and inner-city life. Tommy Torelli was a favorite leg man for New York mob boss Pete Papa until Tommy squealed during a prison term, joining the FBI's witness protection program in order to save his infant son from Pete's threats. With help from a federal marshal, Tommy became "Mark Torrence," left the program, married again and had a daughter as companion for his son, and ran a center for troubled kids in the toughest section of South Chicago. When a nosy journalist's photographs reveal Mark's whereabouts to Pete, he sets sociopathic hitman James BrackenAwhose lover was killed because Torelli turnedAon Mark's trail. Then a retarded teen from Mark's youth center provokes a standoff with the police, finally committing suicide despite Mark's intervention. When the story makes the front pages, along with Mark's picture, Mark knows his life of hiding is over. Izzi (The Criminalist) constructs his wary characters and his suspenseful plot with assiduous attention to detail, and with few wasted words, exposing the two-way street of racial injustice, the realities of police brutality and the hollow "honor" of mob loyalties. This posthumously published novel stands out even amid the other fine crime novels by Izzi, who died in 1996: serious indignation and serious research lie behind this compellingly readable tale of a corrupt society and a genuine hero.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews