True crime writer Cauffiel (Eye of the Beholder, LJ 7/94) enters the fictional territory of Elmore Leonard and Jack Higgins with his latest. Detroit judge Nelson Conner jeopardizes family and livelihood with high-risk actions: drinking to excess, occasional drug use, gambling, and helping Ozzie (a college pal and drug supplier) with a possessions charge. Ozzie owes Lawrence Gary, a newly freed convict who prefers planning elaborate crimes to legitimately employing his considerable photographic skills. Then Gary's slow-witted and violent partner, Torino Dentz, kills Ozzie, and they frame Connor. Discovering and dumping the body in a drugged and drunken daze, Connor is scared straight into a shaky recovery. While Gary tries to extort money from him, first with incriminating photographs and then by kidnapping his wife, Connor must remain sober. Moving via vignettes, the book reaches a denouement at the Labor Day Mackinaw Bridge walk. From: Library Journal

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