Red on Red: A Novel

by Edward Conlon Narrated by Mark Deakins

Overview

A gripping debut work of crime fiction, from the author of the bestselling memoir about life as a New York City cop, Blue Blood. (“May be the best account ever written of life behind the badge.” -Time)
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In Red on Red, Edward Conlon tells the electrifying and suspenseful story of two NYPD detectives, Meehan and Esposito: one damaged and introspective, the other ambitious and unscrupulous. Meehan is compelled by haunting and elusive stories that defy easy resolution, while Esposito is drawn to cases of rough and ordinary combat. A fierce and unlikely friendship develops between them and plays out against a tangle of mysteries: a lonely immigrant who hangs herself in Inwood Hill Park, a serial rapist preying on upper Manhattan, a troubled Catholic schoolgirl who appears in the wrong place with uncanny regularity, and a savage gang war that erupts over a case of mistaken identity.
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A literary thriller about the twisted dynamic of a successful police partnership-the tests of loyalty, the necessary betrayals, the intersections of life and work-Red on Red tells an unrelenting and exciting story that captures the grittiness, complexity, ironies, and compromises of life on the job.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal - Library Journal Audio

NYPD detective Conlon has published in The New Yorker and is author of the best-selling memoir Blue Blood, a National Book Critics Circle finalist. So he can write. This debut novel, which limns the bond between two very different detectives (rough'n'ready vs. slightly mystic), should ring true. With a six-city tour.

Library Journal

NYPD detective Conlon follows up his first-class memoir, Blue Blood, with this superb first novel. Set in upper Manhattan's Dominican-dominated Washington Heights, it is a police procedural with a potent mix of strong story line, police jargon, crisp dialog, black humor, bleakness, gangs, drugs, shootings, murders, and suicide, with complicated romances thrown in. The protagonists are the detective duo of Meehan (Irish American) and Esposito (Latino), who grow closer as they interact with and react to each other during an intensive and widening investigation of a suicide, multiple murders, and an undercover operation to trap a serial rapist. Esposito is drawn to action, exertion, and excitement, while Meehan is more introspective, cerebral, and somber (well-known Irish traits!). Former cop and author Joseph Wambaugh (The Onion Field) has praised this book, and it is easy to see why. The only weakness is Esposito's idealized marital philandering and an unrealistic portrayal of a 13-year-old girl. VERDICT This superb debut novel has all the prerequisites of a best seller. It is authentic, gritty, bleak, fast-paced, and lyrical. [Author tour; library marketing; see Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/10.]—Seamus Scanlon, Ctr. for Worker Education, City Coll. of New York

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171873271
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/05/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

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