State Street

Whittingham ( Joe D: On the Street with a Chicago Homicide Cop ) makes his debut as a novelist with this powerful, exciting police procedural. Sgt. Joe Morrison and his ever-hungry partner Norbert Castor call in political favors, use street snitches as eyes and ears and cover the neighborhood like Jehovah's Witnesses to track down the two men--one black, one white--who raped the retarded daughter of a mob capo. The mafioso himself refuses to cooperate, preferring his own methods of protecting his family and turf. Then a pharmacist is found robbed and drowned in a 50-gallon drum at his store. Clues point to Uptown, Chicago's worst slum, and Tommy Bates, a ``major street animal''; his whorish, drughead girlfriend, Jo Kane; and Manfred White, a black dope dealer. When his partner is shot, Morrison responds like Sam Spade in a similar situation (a man's ``supposed to do something about it''). Telling a lie within earshot of a snitch, he ensures a kind of rough justice, which brings this no-frills story to an ironic but most satisfactory end. (Sept.)