Rooftops

by Lewis Tom

Book by Lewis, Tom

Genres: Horror, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

Reviews

[Grady Hendrix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Police procedural set in the early Eighties about terrorist cells in New York and a serial killer drug dealer brujo biting off the penises of young boys. Should be an HBO series.

[Reevrb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good police procedural ...not so good horror.

[oddo · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong opening that gives birth to an acceptable police procedural. Rooftops is a misnomer. The first victim is lured and brutally murdered, left to freeze on an abandoned building's rooftop. So was the second, but this either occurred off-page or it was such a brief passage that I didn't register it. But the majority of this novel takes place in basements and back-alleys. The procedural aspects enticed me too, with how well the author writes, but this is a novel that dedicates far too much on so little. We are given a hand-wave of an explanation as to why the killings happened in the first place, but it seems like an asspull. The book presents itself, and even begins as a serial killer urban thriller, but it quickly devolves into corrupt cops chasing each other around buildings and pay phones, while dodging paramilitary thugs and social accountability. Some nice action sequences involving hand grenades and staircases, but nothing special.