Proving Ground

Starred review from March 13, 2017
Although it has been 11 years since Slipping into Darkness, Edgar-winner Blauner hasn’t lost his touch, as this page-turner demonstrates. Iraq war veteran Nathaniel Dresden (aka Natty Dread) has returned to New York City for the funeral of his murdered father, lawyer David Dresden. The senior Dresden was suing the FBI on behalf of a Muslim mail carrier, whom they seized and turned over to the Macedonians for “enhanced interrogation.” When detectives Lourdes Robles and Kevin Sullivan catch the case, they find a suspicious pattern of calls from the senior Dresden to the New York FBI office. Natty begins to help his father’s partner, Benjamin Grimaldi, continue the suit, hoping to discover more about his father’s murder. They don’t have an easy time piecing together the murder case or the case against the FBI, but the connections between the two eventually become too great to ignore. Blauner has crafted two strong and complex leads in Natty and Lourdes and given readers an intricate plot that never feels forced. 100,000 announced first printing. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management Literary Agency.

Starred review from March 1, 2017
The murder of a liberal lawyer in Brooklyn puts his Iraq War veteran son and two detectives on a collision course in this complex, character-rich tale.The victim, David Dresden, was suing the FBI in connection with the rendition of a Muslim-American mailman who was tortured and imprisoned for five years based on the false claims of a fellow Muslim worker. Detective Lourdes Robles, trying to redeem herself after a public-relation mess her partner instigated, catches the case with the almost-retired, almost mystical Detective Kevin Sullivan. The crime scene looks wrong, and suspicion falls on the FBI. Then it falls on Dresden's son, Nathaniel, who was practicing law in Florida but returned to New York just before the murder and is facing imprisonment for severely beating a fireman--which he doesn't remember doing, having blacked out. The complications mount when David's law partner, Ben Grimaldi, a father figure to Nathaniel, seems to have won too many cases in which unfriendly witnesses were killed. Blauner (Slipping into Darkness, 2006, etc.) gives his characters a lot of room to move and grow. Lourdes is forced to recall her father's betrayals as she tries to prove herself in the largely male world of the NYPD. Nathaniel struggles with unresolved friction and guilt regarding his father and doesn't relish challenging the paternal-surrogate side of Ben. Meanwhile, he frequently suffers from PTSD's dark memories, especially the accidental killing of a boy during his two tours in Iraq. His eventual confrontation with the child's father, who has immigrated to New Jersey, is a remarkable scene and one that gives a compelling twist to the father-child and sin-redemption themes--only to be one-upped by a doozy of a twist in the murder plot. A top-notch crime novel that avoids easy resolutions and is all the better for its unanswered questions.

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April 1, 2017
David Dresden, a crusading criminal attorney who has plagued the NYPD by providing skilled counsel for people the cops want behind bars, is murdered outside his Brooklyn home. For his son, Nathaniel, aka Natty Dread, who developed PTSD in Iraq, there is sorrow, but he's been estranged from his father for a long time, and nearly anything can trigger nightmarish thoughts of Sadr City. For David's braggadocious, combative law partner, Ben Grimaldi, it means that David's $12 million suit against the FBI has become his case. For Lourdes Robles, an ambitious young detective in an overwhelmingly male environment, catching the Dresden case is either a great opportunity or a career ender. She is paired with Kevin Sullivan, a taciturn legend among Brooklyn cops but who may have lost his edge after 40 years on the force. Proving Ground has a lot of moving parts. The primary characters (including Brooklyn itself) are vividly drawn and compelling, and character drives the plot, which is convoluted but ultimately believable. Fine entertainment for crime-fiction lovers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2016

After a decade spent spinning tales for television, the Edgar Award-winning and New York Times best-selling Blauner returns to the page by introducing New York police detective Lourdes Robles, who's investigating the murder of a truly detested criminal defense attorney. Only his son, a troubled Iraq war veteran, cares about finding the killer.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.