The Printed Page

• My rating: Good/very good
• New-to-me author: Yes
• Would I read more from this author: Yes

Title: The Ninth Step: A Jack Leightner Crime Novel
Author/website: Gabriel Cohen
Publisher: Minotaur
Publication date & page count: May ’10 & 274 pages

From page 137 of The Ninth Step

He continued up the driveway, then paused to dig in his pockets. He caught his reflection in the glass outer door; he looked exhausted and disheveled. With difficulty, he managed to locate his keys. After he pulled the key ring out, he accidentally dropped it on the asphalt. As he bent down to pick it up, he heard a sharp thwack overhead. A chunk of brick fell at his feet and some crumbs of it landed on his hair. He looked up, dazed with lack of sleep — had it fallen off the top of the building? He didn’t see anything up there. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a stranger moving up the driveway toward him, a stern fellow with severely short hair, holding up a long, thin wrapped bundle. Farther off, he saw the back door of the contractor’s van hanging open in the street. A flash and muffled sound came out of the front of the bundle and then Nadim heard another thwack on the wall next to him.

Homicide detective Jack Leightner’s brother was killed in a mugging in 1965, an incident Jack always blamed on himself. Now a stranger tells him that he was a member of a gang that had been hired by a local Mafioso to mug the two boys. The man doesn’t know why. The next morning, Jack is investigating a murder in a local deli by a Pakistani man. A security camera taped the assault, and Jack is confident he will soon wrap up the case. Then Homeland Security steps in, saying the man is an Islamic fundamentalist wanted for terrorist activity. Jack struggles to stay in the loop, while also seeking the true cause of his brother’s death.

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