A month before he becomes New York City’s mayor, Sidel confronts a gang of baseball-loving racists
For the first time in his adult life, Isaac Sidel is no longer a cop. He has moved beyond the halls of One Police Plaza, and is about to take residence in Gracie Mansion, after winning New York’s mayoral election in a landslide. Unable to bear his downtown apartment without his girlfriend—who is in Europe confronting her Nazi-tinged past—the increasingly paranoid mayor-elect has set up shop in a homeless shelter under the name Geronimo Jones. His aides roust him from his hiding spot and have returned him to work when he gets a call from the shelter: Geronimo Jones is dead.
A gang of white supremacists roams the city, murdering shelter residents and marking them with Sidel’s alias. They leave notes with each victim, signing them with the names of nineteenth-century baseball players. Mayors don’t go armed, but Sidel isn’t the mayor yet. He and his Glock will settle this problem before he takes his oath of office.
From Publishers Weekly
The joyous weirdness of Charyn's idiosyncratic New York City can't be described-it must be experienced. Nor can Isaac Sidel, Charyn's one-of-a-kind protagonist and former Commissioner of the NYPD, be understood on brief acquaintance. Here, in the fourth absorbing book of Charyn's Odessa quartet (following Montezuma's Man), it is the mid 1980s and Sidel has been elected mayor, with a month to go before taking office. Subject to his usual paranoia, the former Commish is hiding out in homeless shelters under an assumed name. Now bums are being killed, each one labeled with Sidel's fake name. The murders are claimed by a racist gang who call themselves the Knickerbocker Boys and use the names of Sidel's beloved 19th-century baseball stars. That a few of these white racists might be black is the sort of anomaly that Sidel takes in stride. Some trails lead to a Times Square porn palace where Romanian orphans are made available for pedophiles and where the sultry Rita works. Perhaps she can cure Isaac of his bitter love for Margaret Tolstoy, who has a bad habit of sleeping with Isaac's enemies. Other trails lead to the racists, who may have infiltrated an organization dedicated to historic-building preservation. Table tennis and baseball are near religions, and as always there are too many characters to track (someone should write a Sidel glossary). Puzzle-loving readers should take careful note of Charyn's use of perhaps and may, practicing Sidelian vigilance-the road to Gracie Mansion is loaded with potholes. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This title completes the "Odessa Quartet" (Montezuma's Man, LJ 8/93), Charyn's second series featuring Isaac Sidel. Here, Police Commissioner/Mayor-elect Sidel reacts with his usual determination when a widespread rash of murders threaten New York City. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
A month before he becomes New York City’s mayor, Sidel confronts a gang of baseball-loving racists
For the first time in his adult life, Isaac Sidel is no longer a cop. He has moved beyond the halls of One Police Plaza, and is about to take residence in Gracie Mansion, after winning New York’s mayoral election in a landslide. Unable to bear his downtown apartment without his girlfriend—who is in Europe confronting her Nazi-tinged past—the increasingly paranoid mayor-elect has set up shop in a homeless shelter under the name Geronimo Jones. His aides roust him from his hiding spot and have returned him to work when he gets a call from the shelter: Geronimo Jones is dead.
A gang of white supremacists roams the city, murdering shelter residents and marking them with Sidel’s alias. They leave notes with each victim, signing them with the names of nineteenth-century baseball players. Mayors don’t go armed, but Sidel isn’t the mayor yet. He and his Glock will settle this problem before he takes his oath of office.
From Publishers Weekly
The joyous weirdness of Charyn's idiosyncratic New York City can't be described-it must be experienced. Nor can Isaac Sidel, Charyn's one-of-a-kind protagonist and former Commissioner of the NYPD, be understood on brief acquaintance. Here, in the fourth absorbing book of Charyn's Odessa quartet (following Montezuma's Man), it is the mid 1980s and Sidel has been elected mayor, with a month to go before taking office. Subject to his usual paranoia, the former Commish is hiding out in homeless shelters under an assumed name. Now bums are being killed, each one labeled with Sidel's fake name. The murders are claimed by a racist gang who call themselves the Knickerbocker Boys and use the names of Sidel's beloved 19th-century baseball stars. That a few of these white racists might be black is the sort of anomaly that Sidel takes in stride. Some trails lead to a Times Square porn palace where Romanian orphans are made available for pedophiles and where the sultry Rita works. Perhaps she can cure Isaac of his bitter love for Margaret Tolstoy, who has a bad habit of sleeping with Isaac's enemies. Other trails lead to the racists, who may have infiltrated an organization dedicated to historic-building preservation. Table tennis and baseball are near religions, and as always there are too many characters to track (someone should write a Sidel glossary). Puzzle-loving readers should take careful note of Charyn's use of perhaps and may, practicing Sidelian vigilance-the road to Gracie Mansion is loaded with potholes.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This title completes the "Odessa Quartet" (Montezuma's Man, LJ 8/93), Charyn's second series featuring Isaac Sidel. Here, Police Commissioner/Mayor-elect Sidel reacts with his usual determination when a widespread rash of murders threaten New York City.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.