This fourth installment of a series finds Farrell\u2019s main characters, part-time private investigator Eddie O\u2019Connell and his Uncle Mike, once again caught up in horse racing, bookmaking, and the mob. Mike, a retired cop, is the owner of O\u2019Connell\u2019s Tavern in Chicago, where Eddie acts as bar manager. As the novel opens, Eddie\u2019s girlfriend, Nicole Nicoletti, gets a surprise visit from Jessie Rivera, who\u2019s part of a \u201cpower couple\u201d in Chicago horse racing. Jessie\u2019s partner is Sal, Nicole\u2019s horse trainer father, who is accused of doping his steeds. He maintains he\u2019s being framed, but nevertheless, he faces a serious suspension. The mere hint of the crime initially chills Eddie\u2019s sympathies, since he has grown up around the racing world and hates the idea of drugging horses. \u201cI\u2019d heard of other trainers being suspended for juicing, and all I had to say was \u2018good riddance,\u2019 \u201d he thinks. \u201cHorses had suffered, and some had died during a race.\u201d Eddie and Nicole begin to investigate Sal\u2019s situation, which gets much darker almost immediately when Jessie is found shot dead. Eddie, Nicole, and Mike naturally suspect Jessie\u2019s brother, Ramon, fresh from a stint in prison for drug running for a major cartel (\u201cA proud man,\u201d an exercise rider describes him. \u201cAnd a proud man is the worst kind of man\u201d). The murder also draws the attention of the local mob boss Rosario Burrascano (\u201cIf you\u2019re the mob\u2019s gambling boss and a murder occurs at the last race track in town,\u201d Mike says, \u201cyou get a handle on it\u201d). The heroes are soon neck-deep in a complex web of conflicting motives.<\/p>\n
As in the previous volumes in this thriller series, Farrell once again strikes the perfect pace for this tangle of narrative threads. He dispenses with the usual exposition baggage that dogs later books in an ongoing series by gradually and subtly working background and context into the dialogue, which makes up by far the largest part of the novel. Readers see everything through Eddie\u2019s eyes, and since he\u2019s once again the least developed of the story\u2019s characters, the effect is very close to impersonal narration. He\u2019s convincingly emotional about the turmoil Nicole is going through, and when the strain of her father\u2019s scandal and Jessie\u2019s murder starts to fray the edges of her relationship with Eddie, the interpersonal stuff feels real. Farrell is adept at continuously complicating his narrative without leaving his readers behind; it\u2019s a good bet that even newcomers to the series could start with this volume and get along just fine. And as usual, Mike steals the show, always both the voice of experience and the fountain of rough humor. \u201cUncle Mike had worked murder cases that could pull the heartstrings to the breaking point, yet he was still able to maintain his sense of humor,\u201d Eddie marvels at one point. \u201cHis skin was thicker than cowhide.\u201d The heroes\u2019 bleak sentiments fill the gripping book\u2019s darker second half. \u201cWe lived in a world where fentanyl could be cooked up in a kitchen in Mexico by first year chemistry students,\u201d Eddie thinks at one point. \u201cChasing new drugs was like playing whack-a-mole.\u201d <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This fourth installment of a series finds Farrell\u2019s main characters, part-time private investigator Eddie O\u2019Connell and his Uncle Mike, once again caught up in horse racing, bookmaking, and the mob. Mike, a retired cop, is the owner of O\u2019Connell\u2019s Tavern in Chicago, where Eddie acts as bar manager. As the novel opens, Eddie\u2019s girlfriend, Nicole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}