Submitted by watchungbooksellers on Tue, 12/01/2009 - 1:22pm
12/12/2009 1:00 pm
12/12/2009 2:00 pm
Four bodies, each with a single bullet wound in the back of the head,
stacked like cordwood in a weed-choked vacant lot: That’s the
front-page news facing Carter Ross, investigative reporter with the Newark Eagle-Examiner.
Immediately dispatched to the scene, Carter learns that the four
victims—an exotic dancer, a drug dealer, a hustler, and a mama’s
boy—came from different parts of the city and didn’t seem to know one
another.
The police, eager to calm jittery residents, leak a
theory that the murders are revenge for a bar stickup, and Carter’s
paper, hungry for a scoop, hastily prints it. Carter doesn’t come from
the streets, but he understands a thing or two about Newark’s
neighborhoods. And he knows there are no quick answers when dealing
with a crime like this.
Determined to uncover the true story,
he enlists the aide of Tina Thompson, the paper’s smoking-hot city
editor, to run interference at the office; Tommy Hernandez, the paper’s
gay Cuban intern, to help him with legwork on the streets; and Tynesha
Dales, a local stripper, to take him to Newark’s underside. It turns
out that the four victims have one connection after all, and this
knowledge will put Carter on the path of one very ambitious killer.
Treading
the same literary turf as Harlan Coben, and writing with a fresh Jersey
voice, Brad Parks makes an energetic, impressive debut.
