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Figueroa and Bennis #2
Good Cop, Bad Cop
Beat cop Aldo Bertolucci, who is consumed by jealousy of his older brother, Nick--Superintendent of the Chicago Police--gets his chance at revenge when he discovers suppressed records of an illegal raid on a Black Panther stronghold back in 1969. Reprint.
301 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
37 people want to read
About the author
Barbara D'Amato
45 books27 followersAka Malacai Black
Barbara D'Amato has had a checkered career, working in the distant past as an assistant surgical orderly, carpenter for stage magic illusions, assistant tiger handler, stage manager, researcher for attorneys in criminal cases, and recently sometimes teaching mystery writing to Chicago police officers.
"Writing is the greatest job of all," D'Amato says. "I get to hang around with cops, go ask people questions about their jobs that I would be too chicken to ask without a reason, and walk around Chicago looking for good murder locales. Best of all, I get to read mystery and suspense novels and call it keeping up with the field."
She was the 1999-2000 president of Mystery Writers of America. D'Amato is also a past president of Sisters in Crime International.
D'Amato is a playwright, novelist, and crime researcher. Her research on the Dr. John Branion murder case formed the basis for a segment on "Unsolved Mysteries," and she appeared on the program. Her musical comedies, The Magic Man and children's musical The Magic of Young Houdini, written with husband Anthony D'Amato, played in Chicago and London. Their Prohibition-era musical comedy RSVP Broadway, which played in Chicago in 1980, was named an "event of particular interest" by Chicago magazine. A native of Michigan, she has been a resident of Chicago for many years.
Barbara D'Amato has had a checkered career, working in the distant past as an assistant surgical orderly, carpenter for stage magic illusions, assistant tiger handler, stage manager, researcher for attorneys in criminal cases, and recently sometimes teaching mystery writing to Chicago police officers.
"Writing is the greatest job of all," D'Amato says. "I get to hang around with cops, go ask people questions about their jobs that I would be too chicken to ask without a reason, and walk around Chicago looking for good murder locales. Best of all, I get to read mystery and suspense novels and call it keeping up with the field."
She was the 1999-2000 president of Mystery Writers of America. D'Amato is also a past president of Sisters in Crime International.
D'Amato is a playwright, novelist, and crime researcher. Her research on the Dr. John Branion murder case formed the basis for a segment on "Unsolved Mysteries," and she appeared on the program. Her musical comedies, The Magic Man and children's musical The Magic of Young Houdini, written with husband Anthony D'Amato, played in Chicago and London. Their Prohibition-era musical comedy RSVP Broadway, which played in Chicago in 1980, was named an "event of particular interest" by Chicago magazine. A native of Michigan, she has been a resident of Chicago for many years.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 30, 2022
PROTAGONIST: Chicago Police Department
SETTING: 1990s Chicago
SERIES: #1
RATING: 4.25
WHY: Nick Bertolucci is the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department in the 1990s. He’s an enlightened leader except in the eyes of his brother, Aldo, who is a beat cop in the force and a notable screw-up. After their father dies, Aldo finds information about an act that Nick committed back in a Black Panther raid in in the late 60s with a good explanation of the events of that time laid out. Consumed with jealousy, it gives him the perfect opportunity to destroy his brother. The narrative is full of great characters and presents an authentic view of the police in the department, their issues, their dedication, their humor, large doses of which are sprinkled throughout the book. I very much enjoyed the book but did feel that some of the expository sections were too long.
SETTING: 1990s Chicago
SERIES: #1
RATING: 4.25
WHY: Nick Bertolucci is the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department in the 1990s. He’s an enlightened leader except in the eyes of his brother, Aldo, who is a beat cop in the force and a notable screw-up. After their father dies, Aldo finds information about an act that Nick committed back in a Black Panther raid in in the late 60s with a good explanation of the events of that time laid out. Consumed with jealousy, it gives him the perfect opportunity to destroy his brother. The narrative is full of great characters and presents an authentic view of the police in the department, their issues, their dedication, their humor, large doses of which are sprinkled throughout the book. I very much enjoyed the book but did feel that some of the expository sections were too long.
December 4, 2016
Barbara D'Amato is the author of two Chicago-based series, one with freelance reporter Cat Marsala and the other being what she calls her "Chicago police series." The second title in the latter group was 1998's Good Cop, Bad Cop, based on the real-life notorious 1969 Chicago police raid on the Black Panthers, which killed Fred Hampton. D'Amato uses that as a jumping off point to tell a modern-day Cain and Abel story, featuring two sons of a bullying cop father: Nick Bertolucci, who was part of the Black Panther raid and years later is now Chicago's superintendent of police, and his brother Aldo, the "bad cop" who hates his brother enough to try and sabotage his career after finding evidence that links Nick to one of the deaths in the assault. D'Amato throws in an interesting cast of supporting characters, including Suze Figueroa, the detective who's brought back from D'Amato's first Chicago Police Series novel, Killer.App (1996).
D'Amato prides herself on her research, spending time with cops and walking her mysteries through Chicago's neighborhoods to figure out the timing of crimes. Although she says her favorite author is Agatha Christie ("no wasted words, and plots like steel traps"), she uses a punchy, staccato style better suited to the gritty day-to-day details from cops on the beat, and ratchets up the page-turning quotient with short sentences, paragraphs and chapters. She even adds some dark humor into the mix—not surprising she's worked as carpenter for stage magic illusions, assistant tiger handler, and written musical comedies—as with this scene after a body is found on the rail tracks:
Fiddleman got up the el stairs faster than Reilly, who was a fat, pink-colored white man of forty-five.
Fiddleman approached the stock-still el train, on which a few dazed night workers sat. He guessed there were maybe six people on the train, at what was now 1:17.
Three of the passengers, as well as the train's engineer, had got out. A middle-aged man in a camel hair jacket was throwing up at the far end of the station, which was only fifteen feet away, not nearly far enough.
An elderly woman, easily seventy-five, wearing carpet slippers with slits cut for her corns despite the cold weather, was looking down at the tracks. Fiddleman was about to take her gently by the shoulders and move her away from the horrible scene when she said, "Christ, and I just had liver for dinner."
Fiddleman hoped she was speaking from some sort of civilian shock. Then he thought in an instant's flash of remorse, who do I know what sort of life she's had, she's here on the el at this hour, this weather? At her age.
Then he looked down at the track and understood what she meant.
When asked once what Chicago has to offer mystery writers, she replied, "Chicago has absolutely everything. It's a beautiful city. It has architecture you'll never see anywhere else. And it has a lot of places to hide. There are a lot of old tunnels in Chicago—there are old freight tunnels, abandoned subway tunnels. You can hide here. You can also blend in. Chicago has every ethnic neighborhood known to man. There are so many neighborhoods where you can blend in, depending on how you dress."
Good Cop Bad Cop won the 1998 Carl Sandburg Award for Excellence in Fiction and the Readers Choice Award Lovey Award at the 1999 Love is Murder Conference. D'Amato is also is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and of Sisters in Crime International.
D'Amato prides herself on her research, spending time with cops and walking her mysteries through Chicago's neighborhoods to figure out the timing of crimes. Although she says her favorite author is Agatha Christie ("no wasted words, and plots like steel traps"), she uses a punchy, staccato style better suited to the gritty day-to-day details from cops on the beat, and ratchets up the page-turning quotient with short sentences, paragraphs and chapters. She even adds some dark humor into the mix—not surprising she's worked as carpenter for stage magic illusions, assistant tiger handler, and written musical comedies—as with this scene after a body is found on the rail tracks:
Fiddleman got up the el stairs faster than Reilly, who was a fat, pink-colored white man of forty-five.
Fiddleman approached the stock-still el train, on which a few dazed night workers sat. He guessed there were maybe six people on the train, at what was now 1:17.
Three of the passengers, as well as the train's engineer, had got out. A middle-aged man in a camel hair jacket was throwing up at the far end of the station, which was only fifteen feet away, not nearly far enough.
An elderly woman, easily seventy-five, wearing carpet slippers with slits cut for her corns despite the cold weather, was looking down at the tracks. Fiddleman was about to take her gently by the shoulders and move her away from the horrible scene when she said, "Christ, and I just had liver for dinner."
Fiddleman hoped she was speaking from some sort of civilian shock. Then he thought in an instant's flash of remorse, who do I know what sort of life she's had, she's here on the el at this hour, this weather? At her age.
Then he looked down at the track and understood what she meant.
When asked once what Chicago has to offer mystery writers, she replied, "Chicago has absolutely everything. It's a beautiful city. It has architecture you'll never see anywhere else. And it has a lot of places to hide. There are a lot of old tunnels in Chicago—there are old freight tunnels, abandoned subway tunnels. You can hide here. You can also blend in. Chicago has every ethnic neighborhood known to man. There are so many neighborhoods where you can blend in, depending on how you dress."
Good Cop Bad Cop won the 1998 Carl Sandburg Award for Excellence in Fiction and the Readers Choice Award Lovey Award at the 1999 Love is Murder Conference. D'Amato is also is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and of Sisters in Crime International.
June 29, 2017
I really enjoyed this. Its the story of a police precinct, and two cop brothers, one successful, one not, and harboring an intense hatred of the other. It kept me reading eagerly, wanting to know how things turned out. I liked how the secondary characters were very developed and interesting in their own right.
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September 17, 2022Workmanlike.
April 8, 2011
Good Cop, Bad Cop is about the Chicago PD. The story is based on a true event that happened in 1969, The Panther Raid. The story start out in 1969 during the raid. Then goes 28 years later. Barbara D'Amato does a fantastic job of keeping your attention.
Your main characters are Nick and Aldo Bertolucci. They are brothers who have a very interesting past between the two of them. Nick is the youngest brother and is Superintendent of the Chicago PD. Aldo is the oldest and a police officer. Aldo was a detective at one point but blew it by doing something wrong. He has a gambling problem and has gotten in over his head. His brother has helped him and still does care about him.
Their father was Superintendent during the raid of the Black Panthers. His name was Nico. You learn throughout the book how mean their father was and that he was a very controlling man and would do things to protect you and then use it later to hurt you if he could. Nico dies and Aldo is asked by his mother to clean out his father's things. Aldo finds incriminating stuff on his brother and decides to use it to his advantage.
This is when the story really got interesting. You have blackmail, burglary, thievery and much more. I found myself torn between who I wanted to win in the end.
Your main characters are Nick and Aldo Bertolucci. They are brothers who have a very interesting past between the two of them. Nick is the youngest brother and is Superintendent of the Chicago PD. Aldo is the oldest and a police officer. Aldo was a detective at one point but blew it by doing something wrong. He has a gambling problem and has gotten in over his head. His brother has helped him and still does care about him.
Their father was Superintendent during the raid of the Black Panthers. His name was Nico. You learn throughout the book how mean their father was and that he was a very controlling man and would do things to protect you and then use it later to hurt you if he could. Nico dies and Aldo is asked by his mother to clean out his father's things. Aldo finds incriminating stuff on his brother and decides to use it to his advantage.
This is when the story really got interesting. You have blackmail, burglary, thievery and much more. I found myself torn between who I wanted to win in the end.
March 29, 2009
A story of two brothers, Nick is the superintendant of the Chicago P.D., while Aldo is a bad cop who is envious of his brother's success. After a lifetime of sabotaging his own career, Aldo decides to do the same to his brother's.
The book centers on a 1969 raid on a Black Panther house, in which police murdered Fred Hampton and others, and the subsequent cover-up by the department. D'Amato does an excellent job of entwining events of the late 1960s and the present, showing how the past always retains the power to affect our lives.
Nick, despite his success, is haunted by memories of his abusive father. Aldo is so twisted by his demons that he is willing to kill a fellow cop in pursuit of his scheme to destroy his brother.
D'Amato portrays the moral compromises people are often forced to engage in. She captures the sometimes stifling society of the extended family and the old neighborhood, enveloped by a sense of guilt and regret.
Overall, this is a tightly written book that works both as a psychological study of character and a straightforward police thriller.
The book centers on a 1969 raid on a Black Panther house, in which police murdered Fred Hampton and others, and the subsequent cover-up by the department. D'Amato does an excellent job of entwining events of the late 1960s and the present, showing how the past always retains the power to affect our lives.
Nick, despite his success, is haunted by memories of his abusive father. Aldo is so twisted by his demons that he is willing to kill a fellow cop in pursuit of his scheme to destroy his brother.
D'Amato portrays the moral compromises people are often forced to engage in. She captures the sometimes stifling society of the extended family and the old neighborhood, enveloped by a sense of guilt and regret.
Overall, this is a tightly written book that works both as a psychological study of character and a straightforward police thriller.
April 19, 2016
#2 in the Suze Figueroa series.
Suze Figueroa, Chicago PD - Suppressed evidence from an illegal raid on Black Panthers 30 years earlier, surfaces to threaten Police Superintendent Nick Bertolucci, one of the youngest cops on the raid.
Suze Figueroa, Chicago PD - Suppressed evidence from an illegal raid on Black Panthers 30 years earlier, surfaces to threaten Police Superintendent Nick Bertolucci, one of the youngest cops on the raid.
September 25, 2012
Pretty good but not top notch. Dips into the assassination of Fred Hampto in Chicago as background but is not illuminating. Basic revenge story where the bad guy unexpectedly gets his punishment.
April 23, 2017
The one good thing about this crime novel is that is reminds us the in 1969, the Chicago Police murdered Fred Hampton and other Black Panthers he was living with. D'Amato used that real event for a landmark to write a fiction, 30 years later, about the Superitendent of Police and his brother, a uniformed cop. There was a lot of filler prose to fill out the book that did not relate to story line and the ending was contrived.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews