Thursday, May 10, 2012

King City-Lee Goldberg

King City


Lee Goldberg

Thomas & Mercer, May 15 2012, $14.95

ISBN: 9781612183176



The FBI arrested the entire King City Major Crimes Unit on corruption charges. The only exception is thirty-five years old Detective Tom Wade who worked undercover with the Justice Department for two years. Seven cops are convicted while Tom testified against them and has been kept on administrative leave by Police Chief Reardon.



Everyone associated with KCPD including family members loathe Tom for destroying the lives of his peers and their dependents. Reardon assigns him to work the deadliest and most impoverished slum in the city Darwin Gardens where survival of the fittest is tested every moment. Tom says nothing in spite of knowing he has been given a death sentence. However, being an honest cop is who he is and with little help, Tom and his team of two unwanted rookies investigate a serial killer viciously murdering young women.



Paying homage to Frank Serpico, this is an exhilarating taut police procedural as one honest cop brings down a corrupt department but pays the price in his personal life and on the job where he wears the “Scarlet Letter” of traitor. Fast-paced from the moment Tom enters a hostage situation involving one of the cops he turned in and never slows down as he works a deadly beat with two tyros; one barely graduated the academy and the other a black female who the brass wants to force out as racially and sexually undesirable. Diogenes would have found his honest man in Tom, but even the Greek mythical traveler would wonder whether honesty is the best policy.



Harriet Klausner

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