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Every November a New York tradition returns: Macy's Department Store's Thanksgiving Day Parade, with its floats, marching bands and giant balloons. During the preparations for this one, a ceremony is held to launch a new balloon. It is disturbed by a developing riot and two major happenings: an attempt on the life of New York Police commissioner Logan and the kidnapping of his daughter. With most of the police force assigned to the security of the thousands of participants and onlookers, a special team is called in to find the missing girl. Enter Eve Rossi, head of Vidocq, a covert unit of the FBI, inspired by Vidocq, a real-life French ex-villain turned cop in the nineteenth century. While Eve is pure FBI, her team, true to their name, is composed of four ex-cons who were persuaded to cross over to law enforcement bringing with them their own special talents: hand-to-hand combat, contraband, computer hacking and financial scams. None of them is a team player but they are united by a common cause that gets personal when a second child is abducted. And the clock is ticking as the kidnapper has set a very short deadline.
This is a very potent and captivating thriller on many levels. The writing is snappy and fresh from page one when the reader is effectively dropped into the action, in a vivid setting. Said action is non-stop and suspenseful with every new challenge by the abductor, making the story both action-filled and satisfying intellectually as the team strives to find a personal or political motive to these vile acts.
All the characters are complex with good and bad intermingled in them and between them. For example, we feel the strain of the commissioner torn between finding his daughter and his responsibility to ensure the security of the population and the cops protecting them, all the while, being subjected to in-house political pressure. The author's clever use of maps, files and news reports greatly help with the setting for a non-New Yorker, as did the characterisation and the events happening outside the investigation.
I am not a fan of thrillers as a rule but this one grabbed me from the start and I happily went along for the ride, trying to help the team figure out the who and the why. Even the minor irritants did not sour my pleasure: the energizer bunny syndrome when all involved seem never to eat or sleep, the romantic element, muted though it was, between Eve, the commissioner, and a member of the team. I especially liked it because, contrary to some thrillers, it is not a mechanical sort of plot. Humans are involved and Pintoff is not afraid to resort to very emotional events that cause the reader invest in the story.
It is a book in colour: the parade scenes seem lit up, the characters each have their own hue and there is not a touch of beige in sight. Reading this book allows the reader to boast of having attended a Macy's parade. For all these reasons, I highly recommend it.
§ Nicole Leclerc is a native Montrealer, avid reader, long time reviewer and former moderator of the 4MA online discussion group.
Reviewed by Nicole Leclerc, November 2016
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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