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Bridge: a Wolinski Tale
Introducing Wolinski - a vigilante police detective whose motto is: The End Justifies The Means. He has the backing of the mayor who orders him to clean up the streets at any cost. But things soon go horribly wrong and Wolinski is left hanging out on a limb while trying to catch a monstrous serial killer as the mob and the FBI want a piece of him.
312 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2017
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About the author
Ed Morawski
39 books45 followersMy books do not always fit into established genres - most of them have elements of sci-fi, mystery, crime, action, and especially - romance. I will warn that my idea of 'romance' is not typical, but more along the lines of strong women and men making sacrifices for them.
While my books are not a series in any sense of the word, many are connected through characters and events. I will also say I strive for realism and logic. My books are never fantasy, but rooted in what is actually possible,
I invite you along for the ride and hope it will be memorable.
While my books are not a series in any sense of the word, many are connected through characters and events. I will also say I strive for realism and logic. My books are never fantasy, but rooted in what is actually possible,
I invite you along for the ride and hope it will be memorable.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 12, 2020
I've previous read two unrelated books written by this author. Both were sci-fi and fabulous. I gave a gritty vigilante cop story a chance. I should have stuck with sci-fi. First off, this author has a bizarre writing style. He constantly shifts from first person to third person and from past tense to present tense. It happens at random (at least I couldn't find a pattern). I didn't mind as much with sci-fi, but a detective story makes me pay attention more. I was so busy trying unravel the pattern of his style that I stopped reading as intently the story clues. He also doesn't use commas to separate a statement from the person being addressed (e.g. "Look at this Tom.") That lost the first star. Next it didn't have a unique premise like the other books. It met the normal beats of this type of story. That lost a second star. The real problem is the graphic violence. I don't mind graphic violence, but I do have one trigger: when it's sexual violence against minors. The book opens with a man forcing himself into a preteens mouth. At the halfway point, there is a brutal mother/daughter rape scene that goes on for ten pages. If ever there was a time to fade to black, this was it. The one time when Tell, don't SHOW was in order. It was hard to get back on board for the back half after this. In short, the book is bleak and not for the squeamish. I still recommend other books by the author, but this one was difficult to get through. The rest of my review will contain spoilers.
The Good.
Ski has a legit military history. It wasn't movie stereotypes, but legitimate tactics.
Ski is basically Vic Mackie from The Shield. He knows he's a dirty cop and doesn't care. He will get his man. The saving points of this book are whenever Ski serves as executioner from a villain who definitely deserves it.
Ski has true feelings for Deja. It may have been a bit cliche that he needed a prostitute to help his tortured soul, but it worked here.
I liked reading the phone intercepts. It helped to piece the clues together with Ski.
The full Psychopathy Checklist was in the book with questions and rules for scoring. I was pleased to take the test and score very low (this is a good thing).
I liked the idea of female bait teams to capture the mother/daughter slasher killer/rapist.
Ski making Patterson look like a suicide. Not that it mattered. The Man made Taft look accidental.
The Bad.
I like a linear story. This one has many flashbacks in the opening half.
Eagle Claw snitched a bit early. It later came out that Eagle Claw was playing Ski, but shouldn't he have expected as much?
The Avery/Aubery scene. A big NOPE. I needed a shower after, and it led to skimming a few pages once I realized it wouldn't end until the chapter did. FADE TO BLACK!
Ski didn't shoot Vogelsang, Fogelsong, and Marchetti in the strip club. He should have. It seemed out of character not to at that point.
The Technical.
There is rape (even of minors).
There is consensual sex too.
There is graphic violence.
There is harsh language.
There is past tense and present tense mixed throughout.
There is first person and third person POV mixed throughout.
The Good.
Ski has a legit military history. It wasn't movie stereotypes, but legitimate tactics.
Ski is basically Vic Mackie from The Shield. He knows he's a dirty cop and doesn't care. He will get his man. The saving points of this book are whenever Ski serves as executioner from a villain who definitely deserves it.
Ski has true feelings for Deja. It may have been a bit cliche that he needed a prostitute to help his tortured soul, but it worked here.
I liked reading the phone intercepts. It helped to piece the clues together with Ski.
The full Psychopathy Checklist was in the book with questions and rules for scoring. I was pleased to take the test and score very low (this is a good thing).
I liked the idea of female bait teams to capture the mother/daughter slasher killer/rapist.
Ski making Patterson look like a suicide. Not that it mattered. The Man made Taft look accidental.
The Bad.
I like a linear story. This one has many flashbacks in the opening half.
Eagle Claw snitched a bit early. It later came out that Eagle Claw was playing Ski, but shouldn't he have expected as much?
The Avery/Aubery scene. A big NOPE. I needed a shower after, and it led to skimming a few pages once I realized it wouldn't end until the chapter did. FADE TO BLACK!
Ski didn't shoot Vogelsang, Fogelsong, and Marchetti in the strip club. He should have. It seemed out of character not to at that point.
The Technical.
There is rape (even of minors).
There is consensual sex too.
There is graphic violence.
There is harsh language.
There is past tense and present tense mixed throughout.
There is first person and third person POV mixed throughout.
December 14, 2020
The hero of this book is a hard-boiled detective from the noir crime genre. The book is pervaded by cynicism, fatalism and moral ambiguity. Also sex. The hero’s name, Wolinski, makes me think the author has probably invested him with a bit of his own personality. He is a vigilante cop with no time or patience for doing things the accepted way. The world he inhabits is full of completely despicable, downright evil jerks and psychopaths who can be gunned down mercilessly without any moral compunction.
The narrative flickers back and forth between first and third person. This allows the reader to get an idea of how Wolinski looks when viewed objectively, and how he looks subjectively to himself. Subjectively he is extremely clever, relentless and always in the right. He is constantly encountering road blocks erected by hapless authority figures and others who insist on following established procedures, and having to do end runs around them. A lot goes wrong, but it’s never his fault. He is the lone hero in a very grim world of sadistic and violent crime and widespread corruption. Objectively, on the other hand, what the world sees is an alcoholic without a life, who uses bullets to solve everyone’s problems except his own. Anyone foolish enough to get close to him -- his boss, his partner, his girlfriend – ends up dead or fighting for life. In pursuit of a vicious killer he is constantly outmaneuvered as the body count climbs horrifically. In short, he is totally nuts. However, you can’t help but root for him because He is an embodiment of the fact that you can’t do anything really good if you follow the rules.
I think this book will appeal to devotees of the action adventure genre. The action has enough ins and outs and moves along at a pace that keeps the reader constantly involved. The world Wolinski inhabits is drawn with arresting detail, and the villains are all easy to hate. Wolinski’s voice is genuine and the author has an ear for dialogue. For the genre, I’d rate it a good four and a half stars. I have to knock off half a star however for the sloppy job of editing. There are problems with the grammar and some sentences that have clearly gone wrong. Also, there was some narrative discontinuity in chapter 9 that gave me the feeling that a chunk of text was missing. And the author must be using some sort of dictation software that allows him to speak the book rather than write it because there are plenty of lapsi linguae like ‘a scolding hot shower’ or ‘a room devout of occupants’ that should have been cleaned up in revise. However, overall I think most readers would enjoy the time they spend with Wolinski.
The narrative flickers back and forth between first and third person. This allows the reader to get an idea of how Wolinski looks when viewed objectively, and how he looks subjectively to himself. Subjectively he is extremely clever, relentless and always in the right. He is constantly encountering road blocks erected by hapless authority figures and others who insist on following established procedures, and having to do end runs around them. A lot goes wrong, but it’s never his fault. He is the lone hero in a very grim world of sadistic and violent crime and widespread corruption. Objectively, on the other hand, what the world sees is an alcoholic without a life, who uses bullets to solve everyone’s problems except his own. Anyone foolish enough to get close to him -- his boss, his partner, his girlfriend – ends up dead or fighting for life. In pursuit of a vicious killer he is constantly outmaneuvered as the body count climbs horrifically. In short, he is totally nuts. However, you can’t help but root for him because He is an embodiment of the fact that you can’t do anything really good if you follow the rules.
I think this book will appeal to devotees of the action adventure genre. The action has enough ins and outs and moves along at a pace that keeps the reader constantly involved. The world Wolinski inhabits is drawn with arresting detail, and the villains are all easy to hate. Wolinski’s voice is genuine and the author has an ear for dialogue. For the genre, I’d rate it a good four and a half stars. I have to knock off half a star however for the sloppy job of editing. There are problems with the grammar and some sentences that have clearly gone wrong. Also, there was some narrative discontinuity in chapter 9 that gave me the feeling that a chunk of text was missing. And the author must be using some sort of dictation software that allows him to speak the book rather than write it because there are plenty of lapsi linguae like ‘a scolding hot shower’ or ‘a room devout of occupants’ that should have been cleaned up in revise. However, overall I think most readers would enjoy the time they spend with Wolinski.
November 2, 2023
4.5 out of 5 stars
If gritty crime fiction is your favorite genre then this book is a must read. Our hero in this story is an old cop named Wolinski who holds a special job under his city’s mayor as being a vigilante that is granted the powers of judge, jury, and executioner. Though what he is doing is clearly illegal, he operates under the radar with the understanding that his police department wouldn’t investigate him.
And while he feels good about making the streets safer by taking violent criminals off the streets permanently, it has left his personal life hollow, with the void filled only with prostitutes from a neighboring city and lot of drugs and alcohol.
Things take a dramatic turn when the Mayor is killed in a hit and run car crash which everyone but Wolinski is happy to write off as an accident. With only a few high level officials aware of Wolinski’s relationship with the old mayor, it’s decided by the new administration that he will be put out to pasture through retirement. All he needs to do is stay home, stay out of trouble, and ride out his remaining last few weeks on the force.
But soon after, the old mayor’s wife and daughter are found in their homes raped and brutally murdered. Wolinski believes its connect to the original mayor’s death but a few days later another mother and teenage daughter are killed. It becomes obvious that a serial killer is at work and he has no intention of stopping with new murders occurring every few days.
The city falls into a panic and the police don’t have any leads. This prompts the new mayor to pull Wolinski out of exile and put him in charge of the case as he seems to be very effective at hunting down bad people. Wolinski is up for the challenge but now he needs to maintain the appearance of an honest by the book cop, something outside of his character, while also catching a psychopath that seems to attack at random.
And for a highly skilled detective like Wolinski, things are never what they seem as this killer appears to be part of a much wider and vast conspiracy that goes past the high levels of the corrupt local government.
Bridge certainly lives up to the description of being a gritty detective tale and it hits all the right points for the genre. The pacing of the story is fast and its hard to put down, especially as the plot unfolds and we realize how deep the mystery is. At first the corruption and murders seem random but the author does an excellent job of weaving them together at the end and making the story whole. The plot is excellent and its supported by three dimensional characters who bring the pages to life. I definitely recommend this book.
If gritty crime fiction is your favorite genre then this book is a must read. Our hero in this story is an old cop named Wolinski who holds a special job under his city’s mayor as being a vigilante that is granted the powers of judge, jury, and executioner. Though what he is doing is clearly illegal, he operates under the radar with the understanding that his police department wouldn’t investigate him.
And while he feels good about making the streets safer by taking violent criminals off the streets permanently, it has left his personal life hollow, with the void filled only with prostitutes from a neighboring city and lot of drugs and alcohol.
Things take a dramatic turn when the Mayor is killed in a hit and run car crash which everyone but Wolinski is happy to write off as an accident. With only a few high level officials aware of Wolinski’s relationship with the old mayor, it’s decided by the new administration that he will be put out to pasture through retirement. All he needs to do is stay home, stay out of trouble, and ride out his remaining last few weeks on the force.
But soon after, the old mayor’s wife and daughter are found in their homes raped and brutally murdered. Wolinski believes its connect to the original mayor’s death but a few days later another mother and teenage daughter are killed. It becomes obvious that a serial killer is at work and he has no intention of stopping with new murders occurring every few days.
The city falls into a panic and the police don’t have any leads. This prompts the new mayor to pull Wolinski out of exile and put him in charge of the case as he seems to be very effective at hunting down bad people. Wolinski is up for the challenge but now he needs to maintain the appearance of an honest by the book cop, something outside of his character, while also catching a psychopath that seems to attack at random.
And for a highly skilled detective like Wolinski, things are never what they seem as this killer appears to be part of a much wider and vast conspiracy that goes past the high levels of the corrupt local government.
Bridge certainly lives up to the description of being a gritty detective tale and it hits all the right points for the genre. The pacing of the story is fast and its hard to put down, especially as the plot unfolds and we realize how deep the mystery is. At first the corruption and murders seem random but the author does an excellent job of weaving them together at the end and making the story whole. The plot is excellent and its supported by three dimensional characters who bring the pages to life. I definitely recommend this book.
February 21, 2021
I don't usually read crime thrillers. My rating of, "Bridge," might be a little off because of my lack of comparisons . I liked joining Detective Wolinski while he searched for bad guys, and I liked reading the story as it evolved to focusing on catching serial killers. I learned some things about crime scenes, police politics, etc. I would have liked to learn more about the detective work.
I feel like the main character, Detective Wolinski, was a bit too flawed, and he kept losing my hero worship as the book went on. He walks his readers out of monstrous serial murder scenes, and drives us to around until he finds a cheap hotel. He continues to make time to do drugs and have wild sex with a hooker, Deju. I was disappointed in Deju. I wanted her to be a little more interesting. The author kept her as a drug addicted prostitute, instead of upping her to an interesting, drug addicted prostitute.
The book had many horrific scenes and they were too much for me to read. The child sexual abuse paragraphs were too much and if I had not committed to reviewing it, I would have put the book down.
I appreciate a good story and this book was interesting to read. There were a few times I had to go back a few pages and figure the story out. I think the author devoted much imagination and time to this book.
The graphic violence against children and their mothers was too much.
I feel like the main character, Detective Wolinski, was a bit too flawed, and he kept losing my hero worship as the book went on. He walks his readers out of monstrous serial murder scenes, and drives us to around until he finds a cheap hotel. He continues to make time to do drugs and have wild sex with a hooker, Deju. I was disappointed in Deju. I wanted her to be a little more interesting. The author kept her as a drug addicted prostitute, instead of upping her to an interesting, drug addicted prostitute.
The book had many horrific scenes and they were too much for me to read. The child sexual abuse paragraphs were too much and if I had not committed to reviewing it, I would have put the book down.
I appreciate a good story and this book was interesting to read. There were a few times I had to go back a few pages and figure the story out. I think the author devoted much imagination and time to this book.
The graphic violence against children and their mothers was too much.
December 22, 2020
‘Bridge’ by Ed Morawski is a crime thriller that soon degenerates into a cheap erotica, with macabre details of victims’ torture by a serial killer. It begins with a sickening scene, one should read that and get an idea about this book, which doesn’t warn that sexual details and profane language is going to get on your nerves!
Ski, a ruthless and determined cop takes the highway to deal with criminals and soon runs into trouble. The story sounds like a memoir in the beginning, with two points of view – both are that of Ski. It is built on events and investigation, with no character development. It also reveals the murky world of drug gangs, pimps, politics and police nexus. Morawski paints a bold picture of both the worlds and leaves nothing to readers’ imagination.
I have seen many movies with similar plots, yet it makes an interesting reading and could have been a brilliant book if he had used a better vocabulary and lesser brutality. Some details are grossly unreadable.
Ski, a ruthless and determined cop takes the highway to deal with criminals and soon runs into trouble. The story sounds like a memoir in the beginning, with two points of view – both are that of Ski. It is built on events and investigation, with no character development. It also reveals the murky world of drug gangs, pimps, politics and police nexus. Morawski paints a bold picture of both the worlds and leaves nothing to readers’ imagination.
I have seen many movies with similar plots, yet it makes an interesting reading and could have been a brilliant book if he had used a better vocabulary and lesser brutality. Some details are grossly unreadable.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews