Hyde

Detective Brian McKenna #3

by Dan Mahoney

That clubroom where writers who used to be cops gather is getting crowded, but Dan Mahoney stands a full head taller than most of the other inhabitants. His books about Brian McKenna, Detective First Grade and Edge of the City, show him to be a writer of unusual energy and imagination who uses his police experience as a springboard rather an excuse. Bored by administration and missing the street action, McKenna has quit his job as a New York Police Department assistant commissioner and is back being a detective. Somebody who calls himself "Hyde" is knocking off homeless people who are HIV-positive--but his motive is as original as just about everything else in this excellent thriller.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

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."

Reviews

[Theresa Leone Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual, I read a book later in the series, I believe #7, first. I liked it so much I started at the beginning with Detective First Grade, and was immediately struck by how much Mahoney's writing (not to mention editing) had improved by book #7. Then I tried to find Edge of the City, the second book, which my library does not have but they are looking for in other libraries to give me as an interlibrary loan. So far, no dice, so I read this one, Hyde, third in the series. Problems with it: our detective protagonist, Brian McKenna, is so rich that when going out at night his wife can't decide between wearing her rubies or her diamonds, and they live year round in one of Manhattan's pricier hotels. They are supposed to be rich based on having sold a co-op in Manhattan. This doesn't wash, however, because once you'd spent your money on all the bling, plus they are supposed to have bought a condo in Florida, living year round in a hotel would eat away at whatever savings you had left so fast you would soon be broke. Doesn't make sense for a man who is supposed to be very intelligent. Also, I am not crazy about the wife in the story. She is written, at least in this one, as selfish and immature. Nevertheless, all of this can be overlooked because of the story, which I really enjoyed. A nut is running around Manhattan poisoning homeless people, and as far as literary nuts go, this one is written as very complex, not just an all evil villain, but one with many shades of grey. The character, while not likable (he is, after all, a killer and a nut), is one of the more detailed, fully drawn antagonists that I have read of in a thriller. For that reason more than any other, if this is your genre, I would recommend it.

[columbialion · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is my first single star rating of any book I've posted on GR, but I feel it is warranted. As a procedural written by a former NYPD detective the plot is marginal at best, however the author fails miserably in two main areas. First in his over-worded prose which contributed nothing to the storyline, and then in the books illogical shifting of location in its ending. Add to that, in the supposed climax of the story, the author seemingly describes his detective character McKenna's ability to both close in on his quarry (a serial killer) all the while enjoying wind surfing, fishing and other amenities at his guest villa in Costa Rica. A more bizarre and overly convoluted book ending I have never encountered. This book could have easily have delivered the story in a hundred less pages, Author Mahoney is in serious need of better editing. Because I do enjoy the PP genre I may give the author another read.....but not in the immediate future.

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book dragged endlessly for me. Pages and pages of no plot movement. Reiterating the same thing over and over. Characters seemed to come and go in the story needlessly. First the protagonist was spending time with a female detective, Maureen, then she dropped out of sight as if she had never been there. McKenna's relationship with his wife really made me dislike this book. She is super shallow, a SAHM, interested in nothing but how she looks, fitting in to dresses, going out, looking "good" etc. What is the point of their relationship, exactly? And she's 28, he's 48? What do they have in common? Don't bother with this series unless you like books that are way too long and dull.

[Toesnorth's mom]

kind of farfetched plot

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#3 in the Brian McKenna series.

Brian McKenna, NYPD, tracks down a doctor who is killing AIDS infected homeless men.