Reggie Nadelson's new Artie Cohen mystery begins when a jogger finds a kid's clothes drenched in blood and buried in the half frozen earth near Brighton Beach the coast of Brooklyn. It takes place in New York, a city of islands and rivers, bridges and tunnels. All of it is set between downtown Manhattan where Artie lives, an area still traumatised by the loss of the Twin towers, and coastal Brooklyn.
Brighton Beach, all boardwalk, beach and Russians. Coney Island with its wrecked amusement park. Sheepshead Bay with its inlets and fishing boats. The plot concerns the killing of one child and the abduction of another, and the subsequent outbreak of fear.
Fear is the real story here. The fear that explodes when two children are involved and still others seem to go missing. The way the city is still locked in the terror that's never gone away since 9/11. The constant presence of barricades and barriers and soldiers with AKs as part of the New York domestic landscape.
It's also about Artie's relationship with the Russian community in Brooklyn, the way the story reels him back over and over, the way he can never really escape.
