Book Review: Blaze

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Blaze     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Robert Leuci
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Police Procedural
Avon, Nov 1999, $24.00, 382 pp.

On the streets of Brooklyn works Blaze Longo, a nasty loan shark, who grimly earns a living by kidnapping and brutally murdering his victims. Blaze is also a collector of sorts. He wears a pouch containing the ears of everyone he has had the pleasure to do business with in his distinctive style.

Her superior assigns NYPD Captain Nora Riter to investigate Blaze and put out his flame. Nora is struggling with personal problems, but wonders why the City’s lead detective would be assigned to work a case involving a sadistic loan shark? Nora knows she needs an informant if she is to bring Blaze to justice. She selects unemployed local Nick Ossman as her mark. She blackmails him into betraying the neighborhood gang in order to stop a sociopath-killing machine even if it means both of their lives may end up inside Blaze’s personal counter.

BLAZE is an exciting police procedural that works in spite of employing much of the stereotypical elements that make up many of the sub-genre novels. Nora is superhuman in her obsession to attain justice. NYPD is politically motivated, filled with their own dirty tactics, and includes bad cops. The villain seems more powerful than the marvelous Dr. Doom ever has been. Yet the novel works because the characters seem so real, especially Nick and Nora, who must cross taboos to hope to achieve the impossible task of putting out Blaze.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner