SIXTH PRECINCT: Lt. Joe Dante Novel #2

Lt. Joe Dante #2

by Christopher Newman

A millionaire art collector is hacked to death with a kitchen knife, his precious paintings slashed to bits; a fat-cat neurosurgeon is slapped with a killer malpractice suit that could ruin his marriage, his practice, and his torrid affair with a coke head. Brilliant detective Joe Dante, formerly of Midtown South, now assigned to the Sixth Precinct, is tracking down the killer, when an even more baffling murder forces him to question everything and everyone he knows....
"Newman really knows the territory."
William J. Caunitz
Author of ONE POLICE PLAZA

Genres: Thriller

Audible Audio

First published August 12, 1987

About the author

Born in San Francisco, California in 1952, Christopher Newman was educated in Bay Area Catholic schools, the University of California at Santa Cruz and Birmingham University, England. He travelled overland from Europe across the Asian subcontinent to Singapore alone in his late teens. Before he was 21 he'd worked for a year aboard a tanker plying trade between the Persian Gulf and ports around the Pacific rim. He wrote the first draft of his third published novel, Manana Man, while in residence in Cali, Colombia his senior year in college. At 27, he moved to New York City, working as a trim carpenter for five years in Manhattan before publishing his first Joe Dante novel, Midtown South, in 1985. When that title met with considerable commercial success, his publisher convinced him to turn his protagonist into a series character. Eight more Joe Dante novels followed, all making various national best seller lists. Midtown North, published in 1991, was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America. Chains of Command, left unfinished at the time of best-selling author William Caunitz death in 1998, was completed by Mr. Newman at the estate's request. It was named a 1999 New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Mr. Newman left New York in 2002 and currently resides in Lexington, Kentucky.

Reviews

[Gordon Popular · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joe Dante has been teaching at the police academy since his last bad case. He still has an itch to get back on the streets and finally gets his wish. The case he catches is one of the most gruesome with multiple twists. Overall a good story about police procedures and techniques. The characters are well formed and believable. Recommended.

[Steven Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a decent police and crime novel. Not one that I will keep in my collection, but a decent read. (Warning spoilers below.)

I was disappointed with how orderly the book ended with all of the bad people dead, and all of the "good" guys alive. Life is rarely so neat. I was expecting the weaselly neurosurgeon to survive. His death at the hands of a naked prostitute with a straight razor was a surprise. The scheming manipulative nurse received a rather gruesome death fitting for someone like her. I just do not think that everyone should have died. I think that the neurosurgeon living so that his poor clueless wife could get her revenge would have been a better story line to me.

[Brett]

Thriller

[Laurie Stoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sixth Precint was a well written story but I didn't care for the ending.

[Connie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an ok book. Easy to put down and pick back up at a later time. I used it as my travel book. Oil change, doctors waiting room etc. Run of the mill police story.