Abe Lieberman, the Chicago PD detective, has never had it easy when it comes to emotional cases, but this time the action is getting a little too close to home. His temple has been vandalized along with four others, and it looks like the vandals have more sinister plans in mind. Finding the culprit opens a window on the broiling ethnic tensions on Chicago's North Side, and what's happening in Abe's family life does nothing to turn down the heat. If he and his partner, Hanrahan, can locate the vandals who have targeted the city's Jews, they may be able to put a stop to some of the madness before violence enters the picture.
This third Abe Lieberman procedural involves a heavy dose of the personal. The mugging-murder victim on this frigid January Chicago morning is police sergeant Lieberman's nephew, David, son of his brother. The novel opens with the muggers and the crime itself - the shots that killed David and wounded his very pregnant wife. It then moves to Lieberman, his insomnia, family worries, encroaching age, all shoved into the background with the telephone call from his partner, Hanrahan. Hanrahan himself is quite a character - a former alcoholic sheltering the battered wife of a previous case, who contemplates remarriage to a Chinese woman while still awaiting his former wife's return. Kaminsky seamlessly weaves all this and more into a coherent plot, with plenty of suspense, much of it generated by activities Lieberman and Hanrahan are unaware of - danger to David's wife, and the crazed fanatic who stalks the partners with a shotgun. And the ending is a shocker. Kaminsky, Edgar-award-winning veteran writer, writes with warmth and melancholy humor; a layered book which works on all levels.
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