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Despite being a native New Yorker and a woman, Reggie Nadelson writes in the first person as a male Russian immigrant to New York. She admits to having begun Artie Cohen's career by accident -- she originally planned her protagonist to be Artie's now former lover, Lily Hanes, but changed her mind to give Artie top billing. Just how successful the author has been it is up to the individual reader to decide but to my mind she has made a very good fist of it. Artie, after a stint as a private detective, is back with the police department. His immediate superior is Sonny Lippert whom Artie doesn't altogether trust. Lippert sends Cohen to investigate blood-stained clothing that has been found by a young Russian girl as she was traversing her normal jogging route. Artie feels the young girl, Ivana Galitzine, is not being completely honest with him yet fails to uncover her secrets until the closing chapters of the narrative. The story takes place after the terrible events of September 11 and New Yorkers are increasingly paranoid and more than a little psychologically disturbed by events of which they are reminded daily by the hole in the ground where the twin towers stood. Artie is entitled to a double dose of paranoia since he has the innate fears instilled in him by his Russian heritage, despite his earnest desire to shuck all such baggage from his psyche. Nonetheless, he feels that the bloodstained clothing reported by Ivana has to belong to his godson, Billy Farone. There seems to be an epidemic of child-snatching and child murder rampant in New York. A young girl, May Luca, has disappeared and Billy Farone has also. Another young girl is missing from the Tribeca area. Artie's current love interest, Maxine, is almost as paranoid as Artie himself as she attempts to protect her own two daughters from the nebulous kidnappers. Artie is seemingly bound to the investigation through ties more intimate than his simple knowledge of the Russian language and orders from his police superiors. His relatives and friends are on the wrong side of the investigation yet he feels that no one is being completely honest with him. He learns to distrust those people to whom he is closest. All the time he suffers from the absence of his former lover, Lily. The tale is claustrophobic with its insistence on examining and doubting all Artie's relationships and friendships. The close-knit Russian community at once attracts and repels both Artie and the reader. Artie spends a good deal of the time physically ill, a condition that does not aid his investigations. The denouement of the piece is both unexpected and shocking. The concept for this narrative is a good one yet the action of the tale seems to me to have been slower than would have been more effective. Somehow the thought of moving through molasses sprang to my mind. Perhaps I am being unfair in thinking there is too much concentration on Artie's past and his feeling of 'foreignness' as well as the establishing of a general air of paranoia. Nadelson has left a hook for another Artie Cohen novel for those who may be brave enough to dare a subsequent read.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, June 2004
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