November 23rd, 2009
Rizzo’s War by Lou Manfredo
Rizzo’s War
by Lou Manfredo
I think it would be very difficult to create two characters who are more stereotyped than the two main characters in this story. We have Joe Rizzo, tough Italian detective who has been on the force forever and is just waiting to be able to afford to live off his pension and we have Mike McQueen, new college-educated detective who just came over from patrolling the streets of Manhattan and wants to get promoted back to a big-time job in Manhattan. And let’s not forget the African-American, lesbian patrol officer (who is revealed to have been a member of a motorcycle gang just when Rizzo and McQueen need one) to complete the triumvirate. Rizzo and McQueen don’t do much other than wander through a few cases and reveal that all cops are crooked, even the honest ones. They accept free food from a restaurant in payment for following the owner when he takes the day’s receipts to the bank. They claim a confession that never happened from a dead guy. It takes them two weeks to decide if promotions and bigger pensions in exchange for letting criminals get away with their crimes falls within the oath they took when they became cops. I have to admit that I didn’t like either Rizzo or McQueen.
As far as the story goes, nothing really happens. The detectives have a few cases but none of them are interesting, even the big one that completes the story. And the ending of that case is so contrived as to be unbelievable. And does NYC really have motorcycle gangs running through the city selling drugs and being ignored by the police? In a crime novel, the most important thing is making you care about something and then putting that something in some kind of danger. The detectives who we are supposed to care about, I assume, are never in any danger. The only character who is in danger we know virtually nothing about so it is hard to care what happens to her.
The writing itself is only fair at best. The author tells us about left and right turns in the Impala and Rizzo taking out another pack of Chesterfields and the two detectives talking on their Motorola radio. I expected to go to commercial any minute. But it is fast and easy reading. You can probably blow through this book in a couple of days… and then move on to something better.
