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Detective Brian McKenna #6
The Protectors
Combining terrific suspense, only-in-New York characters, and first hand knowledge about how an international terrorist incident is investigated, The Protectors is Dan Mahoney at his best.
In the mountainous north of Spain, on a quiet Sunday morning, a Basque terrorist group kidnaps the country's wealthiest woman after a violent ambush along a winding country road. At the same time, in New York City, a murderous shootout alongside Central Park leaves two dead and Spain's ambassador to the United Nations held hostage. NYPD Detective First Grade Brian McKenna and his partner Cisco Sanchez (the self-described world's greatest detective) are assigned to the Joint Terrorist Task Force. The task force is focused on locating the ambassador, but for McKenna, the investigation becomes urgent when he learns that the kidnapped woman is Carmen de la Cruz, a personal friend.
The search begins for two dangerous cells, one in New York, the other in Spain. McKenna and Sanchez work with the FBI, ATF, and state troopers to comb the city and eventually the state, but in Spain the investigation is stalled-until the two detectives negotiate an unprecedented role in a foreign police matter. When they arrive in Madrid, McKenna and Sanchez are caught in the crossfire of a war between Basque nationalists and the Spanish police themselves. Intercepted cellphone calls lead the partners to resort area of Gibraltar, and a complex of caves beneath the famous rock that might conceal Carmen and her kidnappers.
In the mountainous north of Spain, on a quiet Sunday morning, a Basque terrorist group kidnaps the country's wealthiest woman after a violent ambush along a winding country road. At the same time, in New York City, a murderous shootout alongside Central Park leaves two dead and Spain's ambassador to the United Nations held hostage. NYPD Detective First Grade Brian McKenna and his partner Cisco Sanchez (the self-described world's greatest detective) are assigned to the Joint Terrorist Task Force. The task force is focused on locating the ambassador, but for McKenna, the investigation becomes urgent when he learns that the kidnapped woman is Carmen de la Cruz, a personal friend.
The search begins for two dangerous cells, one in New York, the other in Spain. McKenna and Sanchez work with the FBI, ATF, and state troopers to comb the city and eventually the state, but in Spain the investigation is stalled-until the two detectives negotiate an unprecedented role in a foreign police matter. When they arrive in Madrid, McKenna and Sanchez are caught in the crossfire of a war between Basque nationalists and the Spanish police themselves. Intercepted cellphone calls lead the partners to resort area of Gibraltar, and a complex of caves beneath the famous rock that might conceal Carmen and her kidnappers.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
4 people are currently reading
38 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
August 6, 2015
Detectives Brian McKenna and Cisco Sanchez are on the case when an ambassador in New York City is kidnapped, part of a coordinated crime that involves kidnappings in Spain as well. I've read others in this series and they are all good; this one, however, feels a little heavy on the planning of how to extricate the kidnapped from where they are being held and light on the actions doing so. Mahoney is a former NYC detective so he knows how something like this would work, and it is interesting, but not always suspenseful. Nevertheless, I like the detectives and always enjoy the novels in which they appear.
September 6, 2020
International intrigue. Two detectives end up on an international case when the Spanish Ambassador is kidnapped-which ends up being a multi nation kidnapping by a Spanish/French Basque group. Lots of different groups and terrorists in play with the ultimate goal being getting the hostages released.
March 5, 2019
Gripping stuff as usual.
August 31, 2015
#7 in the Brian McKenna / Cisco Sanchez series.
NYPD detective Brian McKenna series - Carmen de la Cruz, the richest woman in Spain and a leading voice for peaceful negotiation with Basque separatists, is kidnapped in a violent confrontation while on her way to dedicate a new church. Meanwhile, the Spanish ambassador to the U.S. is snatched in front of his Fifth Avenue residence, leaving two men dead. NYPD detective Brian McKenna is on the scene in New York and is subsequently assigned--along with his partner, Cisco--to a joint task force headed by the FBI. The case has a personal element for McKenna. He's a close friend with de la Cruz, on the basis of a previous case in which her husband was killed. The investigation eventually takes McKenna and Cisco to Spain, where they find moral ambiguity rather than clear-cut answers.
NYPD detective Brian McKenna series - Carmen de la Cruz, the richest woman in Spain and a leading voice for peaceful negotiation with Basque separatists, is kidnapped in a violent confrontation while on her way to dedicate a new church. Meanwhile, the Spanish ambassador to the U.S. is snatched in front of his Fifth Avenue residence, leaving two men dead. NYPD detective Brian McKenna is on the scene in New York and is subsequently assigned--along with his partner, Cisco--to a joint task force headed by the FBI. The case has a personal element for McKenna. He's a close friend with de la Cruz, on the basis of a previous case in which her husband was killed. The investigation eventually takes McKenna and Cisco to Spain, where they find moral ambiguity rather than clear-cut answers.
March 13, 2010
This was my first induction to Dan Mahoney's writing. I found the plot(s) very well done and the twists and turns were unexpected.
The plot involves both New York and Spain, so you have to like a plot tht is not contained within the U.S.
I believe that this book is an interesting read, I enjoyed it and will read any other book by this author that I can find.
J. Robert Ewbank, author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
The plot involves both New York and Spain, so you have to like a plot tht is not contained within the U.S.
I believe that this book is an interesting read, I enjoyed it and will read any other book by this author that I can find.
J. Robert Ewbank, author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
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December 8, 2012foreign intrigue, rather boring
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews