A Falling Knife is set in New York City, and focuses on the gentrification of Brooklyn. It combines the real estate market, police corruption, city politics, and detective work. It starts with the murder of a construction worker. Various people get involved with investigating the crime, and the novel has a large caste. Ralph Mulino is the main detective, and he asks Leonard Mitchell to go undercover in a property development business to find out what is going on. Other detectives do the leg work to investigate the murder itself, but Mulino and Mitchell are the main characters. The story moves along quickly, from cops to community members, and some people from the first novel in this series, The Big Fear. Case’s writing is proficient but it’s hard to care about the people he introduces his readers to. He is more interesting when writing the details about gentrification and property, police corruption and investigation. He hangs those details on a plot that ends up not being very gripping. The performance of the unabridged audiobook by Peter Berkrot is nicely done, bringing out the emotion of the story, but also laying out the many details Case crams into the book.

© 2017 Christian Perring

Christian Perring lives and teaches in New York.