Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Hose Monkey -- Tony Spinosa

According to the jacket copy, Tony Spinosa is "the product of a passionate affair between a Capo in the Gambino crime family and the blind daughter of a local rabbi." He writes a lot like Reed Farrel Coleman, though.

Hose Monkey is the story of a cop, Joe Serpe, who did the right thing and thus lost everything that mattered to him: his job, his friends, his wife and son. Except his brother. And then his brother, a firefighter, died on 9/11.

So Joe's in a funk. He makes his living as the driver of an oil delivery truck, keeps to himself, and doesn't care much about anything. Then a "hose monkey" at the oil company is murdered, and Joe's drawn into the investigation. He teams up with another retired cop and starts to remember what it was like to have a life.

Hose Monkey is a good book for the summer because the winter scenes will help cool you off. The mystery's complicated, the characters are well-drawn, and the violence (especially toward the end) is unrestrained. You'll care about Joe Serpe, and you'll be rooting for him to find some kind of redemption. Check it out. (Not recommended for cat-lovers.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always found it interesting that Coleman worked on an oil delivery truck (and boy, is that a good job to have now or what?) and I'm glad to see him make use of it in a book.

mybillcrider said...

Yeah, the job stuff is pretty interesting in itself.