Lieberman's Folly - Softcover

An overabundance of irrelevant character vignettes impedes Kaminsky's (Toby Peters and Inspector Rostnikov series) procedural, which features the partnership of Chicago cops Abe "Rabbi" Lieberman and Bill "Father Murphy" Hanrahan. When prostitute Estralda Valdez, a past informer, asks the pair for protection, tippler Hanrahan agrees to watch her apartment from a Chinese restaurant across the street. After Valdez is murdered during Hanrahan's watch, he and Lieberman investigate her death, despite the objections of their captain, who is unhappy about negative publicity; they were off duty while they were protecting Estralda and she was only a prostitute, after all. In pursuing the case, the cops encounter a variety of characters, each supplied with copious background. Yet because of the profuse but scattershot surface details, no one-- not even the major characters-- is believable. In fact, the wealth of unfocused information tends to irritate rather than illuminate. Inconsistencies also plague the story, especially when Valdez's mysterious sister, a key ingredient to the plot, is found among a group of characters with whom the detectives should have been familiar. Edgar Award-winner Kaminsky ( A Cold Red Sunrise ) is a facile writer working over a trite tale.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.