The young cop died with his pants around his legs. The crowd had gathered to witness the image of the Virgin Mary weeping tears of frozen water on a Bronx retaining wall. NYPD detectives Gregory and Ryan, partners, competitors, confessors, have a different hunch on the crime. The glad-handing Gregory suspects a prostitute; Ryan is fixated on a rogue cop. But as both men press their investigation they run into a minefield of danger - that place where angels and demons play together, and a killer works in most mysterious ways...
Fast-paced, gritty, funny, this is an absorbing tour of some of New York City's meanest streets. Middle-aged NYPD detective Anthony Ryan, who narrates, and his partner, Joe Gregory, get the case of a murdered off-duty cop whose slashed, semi-clothed body suggests the work of a hooker. The investigation takes the pair from the Bronx to Times Square and beyond as they encounter drug dealers, topless dancers, crazies, transvestites and citizens of every other stripe. Ryan himself is a terrific character, fretting over his wife's diabetes, trying to understand his oft-married daughter, worrying about his partner's drinking (and his own), working at accepting the wildly diverse New Yorkers he meets and salting his narration with street smarts galore, from asides about the best routes through the city and the timing of traffic lights to the observation that it's "impossible to find an unexplored trash can in this economy." As Ryan and Gregory turn over the city's cobblestones, not unexpected culprits slither out: crooked cops, heroin, greed-but the ending takes an odd, bittersweet bounce that's just right for this especially satisfying and savvy cop tale.
