From the critically acclaimed, award-winning S. J. Rozan comes her finest novel to date—an explosive novel about the corrosive power of secrets and corruption in a small town.
In the middle of the night, private investigator Bill Smith is awakened by a call from the NYPD. They’re holding fifteen-year-old named Gary—Bill’s nephew. But before Bill can find out what is going on, Gary escapes custody into the dark night and unfamiliar streets. Bill, with the help of his partner Lydia Chin, tries to find the missing teen and uncover what it is that led him so far from home. Tracking Gary’s family to a small town in New Jersey, Bill finds himself in a town where nothing matters but high school football, where the secrets of the past—both the town’s and Bill’s own—threaten to destroy the present. And if Bill is to have any chance of saving Gary and preventing a tragedy, he has to both unravel a long buried crime and confront the darkness of his own past.
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"What an amazing book! I read it before, when it came out in 2002, but forgot what an intense read it was. This book is told from Bill Smith's point-of-view, and is the story of his nephew who wants to do the right thing, but is first picked up by the police, then given into Bill's custody; Gary runs away from Bill in order to finish what he started. It takes Bill, and his partner Lydia Chin, down quite a long path to find Gary; through Bill's past, his relationships with his father and his sister, and through the past of the town where Gary is living. Bill's brother-in-law moved the family to Warrenstown, the place where he grew up, so that Gary could participate in the football program at the high school. Warrenstown is a place that lives, breathes and dies by its winning high school football team, and the team players can do no wrong--neither in the past or the present. Gary, despite being on the "right" side of the equation, has a sense of fairness in him that makes him realize that being a jock and looking down on the rest of his peers is not what he really wants, despite being new, and on his way to being accepted. A past criminal situation emerges that involved football players 23 years ago, even as a new situation evolves in the present day. It takes everything that Bill and Lydia have to figure out where the path is leading, and to race against time to prevent a terrible occurrance.
I love this series, and these characters--Rozan's newest book in this series is Shanghai Moon, due out in the next few weeks. If you haven't already read this series, I strongly suggest that you do so!
An aside: a friend of mine bid in a charity auction to have his name used in the book, and prior to its publication, Ms. Rozan told him his name is "all over the book". And it is, quite cleverly--my friend is Gary Warren Niebuhr. Gary is the name of Bill Smith's nephew, Warrenstown is where much of the story plays out, and Niebuhr is the name of another main character. I loved this!"
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Patti (4 out of 5 stars)