Blaze

by Robert Leuci

A police captain and lead investigator for the chief of New York's detectives, Nora Riter is smart, strong-willed, and beautiful--a rising star. But her personal life is threatening to send her career into a nosedive. Struggling to reestablish controlboth professionally and personally-she takes on a case that leads her to the meanest of Brooklyn's streets, the domain of Blaze Longo, a Red Hook loan shark and pathological killer in steel-toed boots. Longo's reputation for cruelty and sadistic behavior strikes terror in the hearts of even the most hardened tough guys. Up until now, he has remained untouchable. But Blaze has never encountered the like of Captain Nora Riter. But she needs help, and it's coming in the form of a most unlikely good-looking sometime actor, always streetwise Nicky the Hawk Ossman. Ossman knows Brooklyn's Red Hook better than anyone and he has good reasons to want the psychopathic Blaze oft the streets. There's Nicky's adopted sevenyear-old son, Tino, and a light-headed prostitute cousin named Irma, both of whom share Nicky's life-and neither can make it through this life without him. Therefore, a stretch in prison for assaulting a vice cop--a very real prospect proposed to him by a determined Nora Riter-is unthinkable. So he agrees to go undercover to nail the madman Blaze. Stalking Longo is perilous work, and Nicky soon wants out. Nora, however, wants Longo in the worst way. Circumstance has thrown Nora and Nicky together in this very dangerous game, which is smelling increasingly of secrecy, lies, and betrayal emanating from the top levels of the department. But they can survive the coming conflagration if they are willing to break all their own rules. There is one busted commandment, however, that could cost them the unwritten law that says a cop and her informant must never get romantically involved.   A police captain and lead investigator for the chief of New York's detectives, Nora Riter is smart, strong-willed, and beautiful-a rising star. But her personal life is threatening to send her career into a nosedive. Struggling to reestablish control-both professionally and personally-she takes on a case that leads her to the meanest of Brooklyn's streets, the domain of Blaze Longo, a Red Hook loan shark and pathological killer in steel-toed boots. Longo's reputation for cruelty and sadistic behavior strikes terror in the heads of even the most hardened tough guys. Up until now, he has remained untouchable. But Blaze has never encountered the like of Captain Nora Riter. But she needs help, and it's coming in the form of a most unlikely good-looking sometime actor, always streetwise Nicky the Hawk Ossman. Ossman knows Brooklyn's Red Hook better than anyone and he has good reasons to want the psychopathic Blaze off the streets. There's Nicky's adopted seven-year-old son, Tino, and a light-headed prostitute cousin named Irma, both of whom share Nicky's life-and neither can make it through this life without him. Therefore, a stretch in prison for assaulting a vice cop-a very real proposed to him by a determined Nora Riter-is unthinkable. So he agrees to go undercover to nail the madman Blaze. Stalking Longo is perilous work, and Nicky soon wants out. Nora, however, wants Longo in the worst way. Circumstance has thrown Nora and Nicky together in this very dangerous game, which is smelling increasingly of secrecy, lies, and betrayal emanating from the top levels of the department. But they can survive the coming conflation if they are willing to break all their own rules. There is one busted commandment, however, that could cost them the unwritten law that says a co and her informant must never get romantically involved.

400 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Aka Bob Leuci

Robert Leuci was an officer with the New York City Police Department for more than twenty years (1959-1981), known for his work exposing corruption in the police department and the criminal justice system.After retiring from the NYPD he wrote novels, short stories, TV episodes and a memoir of his years on the force. He taught and had residencies at over forty universities and law schools, and lectured on morality and ethics erosion at many US police departments and the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia. The book (by Robert Daley) and the film Prince of the City are based on a portion of Leuci's police career. In 1999 he received the South County Center for the Arts Literary Prize. He was an Adjunct Professor of English and Political Science at the University of Rhode Island. Leuci passed away on October 12, 2015 at the age of 75 after complications from surgery.

Reviews

[Brian O'Leary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick, simple, read, but not a lot of uniqueness to separate it from others in the genre.

[Miranda Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I read this book because one of my college professors wrote it and I was intrigued.)

This one was definitely a slow read, which is why I gave it 3 stars instead of 4. There was a lot of development, and the action part of the story only really occurred in the last 50 pages or so. Personally, I think that development is a good thing and is necessary for novels but, for a "thriller," it just wasn't very... thrilling. The development part of the novel did make it so that I was able to really connect with both main characters, but I also wish that there had been a little bit more time spent on them together. We're supposed to believe that these two have some sort of romantic connection, but they barely spend any time together.

I also thought that Sam's storyline was a little bit bizarre. For the first 100 pages or so, you think that he's this extremely important character to the story, but then he ends up disappearing, with nothing noteworthy in his storyline happening until the very end. I liked that this character was in the story in general, I just wish that it wasn't built up to make it seem like he was going to be a crucial element.

I felt similarly about the storyline having to do with Nora's husband. It was obviously important, because what went down with him really affected Nora's character, but I felt like it could've been pared down a little bit. He doesn't ultimately end up being as important as it seems like he's going to be. The important part of his story was his connection with Ceballos, but the author still could've kept that part while not spending quite so much time on him.

Another part of the story that I felt could've been done better was Jean-Paul's relationship to Blaze and why he wanted Nora to go after him. The way the story was building up on it made it seem like it was going to be this big shock -- like, "Oh... THAT'S why he's obsessed with him?? Oh my god!!" but it didn't end up being like that at all. It was more like, "Oh... okay. So what?"

There were also a LOT of grammatical errors that were driving me nuts the whole time I was reading it. It obviously wasn't edited very well, although that didn't really take away from the book itself.

Ultimately, I really did like the stories of Nora, Nicky, Blaze, Charlie, Tino, and Irma, and the writing was very good. I just wish that the other, less-important story lines had been pared down a little bit and that it was a bit more "thrilling" (it definitely wasn't a page-turner). But overall it was a good read, although I don't think I would necessarily recommend it to someone else.