Manhattan Roulette

by Walt Cody

When sex in the city becomes a deadly game, it's up to the Manhattan Homicide Task Force to deal with the startling serial murders that are panicking the city and pressuring the pols. But Manhattan Roulette, with its pungent insights and razor-sharp, occasionally rollicking, prose, is more than just a riveting detective story; it's a probing exploration of the state of our unions in the post-romantic world. It's also a compelling character study. Its hero, Burt Brymmer, is a man who's both physically and emotionally scarred, and as the head of an expanding team of detectives, he's uniquely equipped to take the case to a close. His partner, Steve Ross, whose manic sense of humor is a shield against the tragedies he faces at home, is the yin to Brymmer's yang as they move through Manhattan accumulating stories from the winners and losers in a fatal game of chance. From porn writers to cover girls, bartenders to fashionistas, stockbrokers to millionaires with a taste for the exotic and the desperate "huddled misses" haunting the West Side bars, the novel covers a city where nobody seems to sleep without Lunesta or Atavan or a 3AM hookup. Brymmer gets his own chance to gamble with his luck when a Fox News reporter who's been following the blood trail with a questionable persistence starts to knock on his heart and to challenge his reserve. Written in a fresh, direct and cinematic style, Manhattan Roulette takes the popular genre of police detection to a new and bracing level.

400 pages, Paperback

Published February 15, 2016

About the author

Walt Cody has been an advertising executive, an occasional journalist, and has written, often pseudonymously, for page and screen (feature, network and cable). He lives in Manhattan with a lady and a cat.

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Cody/e/B01...

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ManhattanRou...

Reviews

[Bran Gustafson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough not just to win this in a Goodreads Giveaway (I never win anything), but to find that it was actually a good read.

I enjoyed most of all the detached, witty style of the prose, which reminded me of the best of classic American noir. It was definitely a detective novel but didn't feel like a cliche. There have been so many detective characters created over the years that I'm always surprised when I come across one who feels unique.

On the downside, it did seem to drag on toward the end there. The ending was a bit anticlimactic. A lot the minor characters felt interchangeable to me.

But those things don't keep this book from being a great read.

[Yvette Nachmias-Baeu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kudos!!! Been home nursing a flu for the past three days, which was
a positive thing, because it allowed me to read Manhattan Roulette, without
a lot of interruption.

I was glued to the pages...annoyed only when the phone rang and interrupted the
story. Very well done. The writer is so thorough and his characters are all
wonderfully drawn. The plot development is done with such care and gave us a backstory
to ponder about the main characters and their lives (the detectives)

I would pride myself in figuring out who might have done it, but then would
be either wrong or recognize the author was just drawing me into the drama.
and I couldn't wait to find out
what was done with the severed members..though I guess I figured that out
as well,.mostly because the writer let us in on it in his good time.

It is a formidable plot. with style and characters and made New York a
real place. It is clear Mr. Cody took great care with.this story, and fascinated
us with his knowledge of how things work.

Anyway, suffice to say it was a very engrossing read and I admired the way
he revealed the outcome ever so slowly.

Thank you for such a good time. (less)

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[Linda Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! A detective story that's more than "just" a detective story, though as such, it's a fine one--intriguing from the start, logical at the end with not a plot-hole in sight. But I'm one of those readers who reads for more than plot and it's there that Manhattan Roulette really scores. Or soars. The writing is terrific. Quick-witted dialogue and deft descriptions. Insightful narrative that probes inner lives. The leading characters are so fully real that after you've traveled with them through the book, you want to pick up the phone and ask them how they're doing. New York is real too. As someone who lives here, I can promise you the author's got Manhattan down pat--not through a series of set-piece locations, but rather by conveying how life here is lived. By all kinds of people --the ones who get to live in that zillion-dollar townhouse and spend their afternoons shopping at Prada, and the rest of us, paying unreasonable rents for tiny apartments and looking for something approximating love. (Speaking of which, I fell in love with Burt Brymmer, the detective sergeant who's in charge of the case. What a wonderful character! I hope Mr Cody brings him back for another round.)

[Estelle Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a first-rate novel. The prose is tough, clean and clear carrying forward a fine plot
and focusing on a fascinating cast of characters, up close and very personal. The time frame is very much today confronting the strained relationships between men and women at a time when huge change and a fresh set of expectations rule and roil the roost which is no longer the roost where we roosted. Bottom line, the book is a treat, cover to cover, between the covers
and under the covers.