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Detective Cisco Sanchez #2
Justice: A Novel of the NYPD
Four bizarre, high-profile killings in two days. Even for the NYPD's elite Major Case Squad, that's quite a bloody handful. All four victims were themselves predators; violent drug dealers and thugs who preyed on New York's most vulnerable. But as Detective First Grade Brian McKenna and his partner Cisco Sanchez, are about to learn, it's only just begun to hit the fan.
What really sets these killings apart is when the killer contacts the press, boldly detailing each of the victim's transgressions in a letter signed only with the name, "Justice." And when substantial sums of money taken from the criminals begins to appear in the collection plates of various religious and social groups around the city, it seems that a lethal Robin Hood has emerged to take back the city's streets.
But Brooklyn isn't Sherwood Forest, and Robin Hood never savagely tortured his victims before slaying them. Now, caught between a public cheering for their quarry and the crushing pressure of the Commissioner's office, McKenna and Sanchez, have to track down an imaginative and efficient killing machine who shows no signs of slowing his mortal vengeance.
What really sets these killings apart is when the killer contacts the press, boldly detailing each of the victim's transgressions in a letter signed only with the name, "Justice." And when substantial sums of money taken from the criminals begins to appear in the collection plates of various religious and social groups around the city, it seems that a lethal Robin Hood has emerged to take back the city's streets.
But Brooklyn isn't Sherwood Forest, and Robin Hood never savagely tortured his victims before slaying them. Now, caught between a public cheering for their quarry and the crushing pressure of the Commissioner's office, McKenna and Sanchez, have to track down an imaginative and efficient killing machine who shows no signs of slowing his mortal vengeance.
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 15, 2003
4 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
Dan Mahoney
19 books20 followers I was born in Manhattan on September 21, 1947, five minutes after Stephen King was born someplace in Maine. (I don't know what that means, but I'm hoping it means something.) I grew up in Manhattan and Queens and soon found myself to be the eldest of five children. I graduated from high school at age 16, a bad thing because I was too young to get a driver's license in New York and too stupid to realize that I had to go to college to get my ticket punched. Instead, I worked as a machinist and auto mechanic for a year before enlisting in the Marine Corps at age 17. A while later I found myself in Vietnam as a machine gunner with the 9th Marines, an outfit known as The Walking Dead. It was a very bad job, to say the least.
After getting discharged in one piece in 1968, I did as my father and grandfather had done before me and joined the NYPD. During the next twenty years I managed to get promoted regularly and served in various patrol and detective commands, mostly good jobs in mostly rotten places. I also took advantage of the VA Bill and finally went to college, attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice part time and graduating in 1977 as the class valedictorian with a BA in Romance Languages.
Also part time, I got a job as Yoko Ono's security chief after John Lennon was murdered. It turned out to be interesting work since, at the time, crazies were coming out of the woodwork to annoy and harass her. Yoko liked to travel and so did I, so one of the great benefits of the job was that I got to go to some very nice places in a very nice way.
Meanwhile, my brothers and sisters were also busy. My brother Eddie decided to call himself Eddie Money and he's been singing, doing shows, and selling records ever since. My sister Peggy became a psychologist and my two other sisters, Pat and Kathy, are both nurses.
By 1989 I had twenty years with the NYPD and it was time to retire since the chiefs had never been too happy about my high-profile, off-duty job, and I had learned by tough experience that unhappy chiefs make for miserable captains. My wife at the time had also had enough of me since, between police work, school, and working for Yoko, I hadn't been home much during our marriage, so she gave me my walking papers and a heavy-duty alimony and child-support bill.
After retiring, I began working as the director of investigations for the Holmes Detective Bureau, an old and well-regarded New York PI agency. I also got a literary agent and began working on my first book, Detective First Grade. My agent sold it to St. Martin's Press a week after I finished it and it was published in May, `93. The book got good reviews and sold well, so I had myself another good part-time career. I wrote another seven books in the next twelve years, a rate of one book every year and a half. All of them feature Detective Brian McKenna or Detective Cisco Sanchez as my protagonist, and although not New York Times best-sellers, they have all received good reviews and I have sold well enough that I now regularly make the USA Today Best Seller List. Detective First Grade, Edge of the City, Hyde, Once In, Never Out, Black and White, and The Two Chinatowns, and The Protectors are all still in print.
I now have a government job working for the Department of Homeland Security, but that will have to end soon because I must get to work on my next book. My hobbies are skiing, traveling, and hanging out with my pals in pubs in town where we spend most of our time lying about our old cases. Our motto is: "The older we get, the better we were."
After getting discharged in one piece in 1968, I did as my father and grandfather had done before me and joined the NYPD. During the next twenty years I managed to get promoted regularly and served in various patrol and detective commands, mostly good jobs in mostly rotten places. I also took advantage of the VA Bill and finally went to college, attending John Jay College of Criminal Justice part time and graduating in 1977 as the class valedictorian with a BA in Romance Languages.
Also part time, I got a job as Yoko Ono's security chief after John Lennon was murdered. It turned out to be interesting work since, at the time, crazies were coming out of the woodwork to annoy and harass her. Yoko liked to travel and so did I, so one of the great benefits of the job was that I got to go to some very nice places in a very nice way.
Meanwhile, my brothers and sisters were also busy. My brother Eddie decided to call himself Eddie Money and he's been singing, doing shows, and selling records ever since. My sister Peggy became a psychologist and my two other sisters, Pat and Kathy, are both nurses.
By 1989 I had twenty years with the NYPD and it was time to retire since the chiefs had never been too happy about my high-profile, off-duty job, and I had learned by tough experience that unhappy chiefs make for miserable captains. My wife at the time had also had enough of me since, between police work, school, and working for Yoko, I hadn't been home much during our marriage, so she gave me my walking papers and a heavy-duty alimony and child-support bill.
After retiring, I began working as the director of investigations for the Holmes Detective Bureau, an old and well-regarded New York PI agency. I also got a literary agent and began working on my first book, Detective First Grade. My agent sold it to St. Martin's Press a week after I finished it and it was published in May, `93. The book got good reviews and sold well, so I had myself another good part-time career. I wrote another seven books in the next twelve years, a rate of one book every year and a half. All of them feature Detective Brian McKenna or Detective Cisco Sanchez as my protagonist, and although not New York Times best-sellers, they have all received good reviews and I have sold well enough that I now regularly make the USA Today Best Seller List. Detective First Grade, Edge of the City, Hyde, Once In, Never Out, Black and White, and The Two Chinatowns, and The Protectors are all still in print.
I now have a government job working for the Department of Homeland Security, but that will have to end soon because I must get to work on my next book. My hobbies are skiing, traveling, and hanging out with my pals in pubs in town where we spend most of our time lying about our old cases. Our motto is: "The older we get, the better we were."
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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December 8, 2012excellent
March 5, 2019
Mahoney is always on top of his game!
January 25, 2024
I am reading this now and completely engrossed. A different take without a lot of action. Glides along well. I'm going to go back and read more of the police officers.
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January 14, 2009Justice, by Dan Mahoney. B-plus
Purchasedas a cassette book from audioeditions.com.
Brian and Cisco, two NYPD cops, go on vacation with their families to Florida. Cisco comes into Brian’s room after about a week and shows him the New York Post. There are two separate stories, one taking place in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn, where drug lords were tortured to death. The person who did it left a note each time-one for the hotel with some money to recompense them for the bloody mess, one for the police challenging them to catch him, and one to a favored police beat reporter at the New York Post. The ones to the reporter are always signed “Justice”, and of course the reporter prints them. The police and the public personally aren’t sorry to see these drug lords killed. In each case, Justice includes a list of the people the drug dealer dealt with, part of what he gets from the torture, and the police are able to clear cases as well. But Brian and Cisco become convinced that the killer is an insider, a cop, or is getting information from an insider. Brian and Cisco must do the job of catching this man, whom others know must be stopped, but whom they privately appreciate for clearing more drug cases than the NYPD has in many years. This is a thriller, action-packed. We see very little of the families of the cops, which actually is fine with me for a change. We were focused on the actual crime rather than the romantic side relationships of the cops. I will look for other books by this author.
Purchasedas a cassette book from audioeditions.com.
Brian and Cisco, two NYPD cops, go on vacation with their families to Florida. Cisco comes into Brian’s room after about a week and shows him the New York Post. There are two separate stories, one taking place in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn, where drug lords were tortured to death. The person who did it left a note each time-one for the hotel with some money to recompense them for the bloody mess, one for the police challenging them to catch him, and one to a favored police beat reporter at the New York Post. The ones to the reporter are always signed “Justice”, and of course the reporter prints them. The police and the public personally aren’t sorry to see these drug lords killed. In each case, Justice includes a list of the people the drug dealer dealt with, part of what he gets from the torture, and the police are able to clear cases as well. But Brian and Cisco become convinced that the killer is an insider, a cop, or is getting information from an insider. Brian and Cisco must do the job of catching this man, whom others know must be stopped, but whom they privately appreciate for clearing more drug cases than the NYPD has in many years. This is a thriller, action-packed. We see very little of the families of the cops, which actually is fine with me for a change. We were focused on the actual crime rather than the romantic side relationships of the cops. I will look for other books by this author.
July 14, 2015
#8 in the series finale featuring Brian McKenna and Cisco Sanchez, NYPD detectives.
Brian McKenna and partner Cisco Sanchez are recalled from vacation to apprehend the vigilante who is murdering drug lords in NYC, stealing their loot and distributing the proceeds to houses of worship. Although Brian and Cisco have to stop the murders, the public is making a hero of the vigilant. Making matters worse is the suspicion that he is a cop.
Brian McKenna and partner Cisco Sanchez are recalled from vacation to apprehend the vigilante who is murdering drug lords in NYC, stealing their loot and distributing the proceeds to houses of worship. Although Brian and Cisco have to stop the murders, the public is making a hero of the vigilant. Making matters worse is the suspicion that he is a cop.
August 9, 2008
Okay, not only hasn't the author killed off the most annoying detective in the world, Cisco Sanchez, but he's killed off some of the other police who work with main character, Det. Brian McKenna, that I really liked. I'm going to have to quit reading this series.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews