Violent Crimes

Holton, a 27-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, has now written four hefty novels (most recently, Chicago Blues) about fictional CPD Commander Larry Cole. While the first three books were occasionally well-received, Holton takes a sharp wrong turn with this story that manages to be violent and tedious at the same time. This killings (by bullet, bomb and fire) are so predictable that both sympathy for the victims and interest in the cops trying to find out who is behind them quickly evaporate. Holton gambles that he can maintain suspense when the reader knows what Cole doesn't, namely that Steven Zalkin, the smoothly evil multimillionaire who's giving Cole fits in 1991, is really Martin Zykus, the crazy rapist who gave him fits in 1976. Holton loses that wager. The story, about one madman's revenge, is beyond overblown, and Holton's prose is as lumpy as a Chicago street in winter. It is no help that Commander Cole comes across as stiff and slightly dim, or that Zalkin is as ludicrous as the plot. (Feb.)