The Thursday Club

Murano ( Cop Hunter ) and Hammer ( The CBS Murders ) animate this tidy tale of corruption among New York City's power elite with convincing verite. From the opening discovery of a corpse at a huge Staten Island dump to the unexpected revelation on the final page, they deliver surprises with deft competence. Ben Rogers, an internal affairs detective in the NYPD, is snagged to run a background check on an appointee of the mayor-elect. But the people he needs to talk to keep showing up dead--first his close friend and colleague, Felix Palmieri, then Wall Street whistle-blower Werner Rosenblatt, then Rogers's prime imformant, Sully. The questions always return him to a group of powercrats that includes the appointee, the chief of police, a congressman and a bishop. The conventional plot, which pits the honest maverick against an elaborate conspiracy, is redeemed by the sharp-thinking, sympathetic Rogers, a tough paisan with a distaste for violence (he would rather measure the risks and outthink his adversaries than rush into dangerous encounters), and by Murano and Hammer's realistic portrayal of police work, full of dead-on detail. (Nov.)