Nowhere to Run

Returning to the southern French setting of his novel The Dangerous Edge (1983), Daley (Wall of Brass) crafts a crisp and intricate thriller about two detectives and two police systems that, for all its high-spirited writing, turns seriously dark at the end. Detective Jack Dilger has alienated some powerful NYPD superiors with his freewheeling ways. When his bust of a crooked art dealer and a couple of Colombian drug agents turns into a disastrous shootout, he's forced off the job. In immediate peril from the surviving drug dealer and with his marriage crumbling, Jack takes off for the French Riviera. There he hooks up with former Nice inspecteur Madeleine Leclerq, who herself has been forced out of her job, her case against some crooked politicians and industrialists quashed from on high. Jack and Madeleine begin an affair and soon realize that each is being stalked by enemies. Daley's leads are likable and believable, his French local color is first-rate and his complicated plot turns, buoyed by tension and splashed with violence, work beautifully. The ending isn't happy, but it rings true. Daley, once deputy commissioner of the NYPD, again proves that as far as cop novels go, he's still the top brass around. Major ad/promo. (Oct.)