Copp on Ice

Joe Copp #5

by Don Pendleton

Acting Police Chief of the overdeveloped, out-of-control town of Brighton, California, laid-back ex-cop and private eye Joe Copp must contend with stress on the job when five policemen are found dead twenty-four hours after he takes charge. Reprint.

Genres: Mystery, Thriller

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Don Pendleton was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, December 12, 1927 and died October 23, 1995 in Arizona.

He wrote mystery, action/adventure, science-fiction, crime fiction, suspense, short stories, nonfiction, and was a comic scriptwriter, poet, screenwriter, essayist, and metaphysical scholar. He published more than 125 books in his long career, and his books have been published in more than 25 foreign languages with close to two hundred million copies in print throughout the world.

After producing a number of science-fiction and mystery novels, Don launched in 1969 the phenomenal Mack Bolan: The Executioner, which quickly emerged as the original, definitive Action/Adventure series. His successful paperback books inspired a new particularly American literary genre during the early 1970's, and Don became known as "the father of action/adventure."

"Although The Executioner Series is far and away my most significant contribution to world literature, I still do not perceive myself as 'belonging' to any particular literary niche. I am simply a storyteller, an entertainer who hopes to enthrall with visions of the reader's own incipient greatness."

Don Pendleton's original Executioner Series are now in ebooks, published by Open Road Media. 37 of the original novels.

Wikipedia: Don Pendleton

Reviews

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, the events in this book are totally unrealistic. The idea that any bureaucrat would take, much less get away with, the risk taken by the City Administrator in this novel. And even if such a bureaucrat was willing to take such a risk, I sincerely doubt that he would choose the protagonist of this series, habitually in trouble with the establishment, to be in charge of a modern police department with issues of police corruption. On the other hand, the tale is so fast-paced and the character so well-established in previous books of the series that I was just pulled into the story like flotsam into a whirlpool. I suppose it helped that I knew that the author was now living in West Covina and that I had once lived in a nearby city. The venue for the story was a fictionalized West Covina or Baldwin Park. I could visualize the “no man’s land” described between those civic entities and I understood the resentment between municipal officers and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office. So, there were plenty of connections for me that might not be there for anyone else. The extra special bonus portion of the book for me was that it had a fascinating conspiracy with its attendant paranoid participants and investigators within the tendrils of its tricky little plot. This book cannot be recommended to mystery fans who need a hefty dose of realism in their plots. For some of us, though, the flimsy plot serves the same purpose as a diaphanous gown provides to a groom on a honeymoon. It may not be substantial, but it has a certain welcome aesthetic.

[Phillis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. These are nice books to listen to while doing something else. I think the way he explains everything at the end rather then me trying to figure out what it all meant after the bad guy/s are captured. He ties it all together.
Copp is hired temporarily as Captain of the Police dept to find out why one of the cops were killed and if the whole dept is on the take. Meanwhile more bodies are piling up.

[K.B. Hallman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Breezy. Not quite noir. I really enjoyed the thought-provoking parts where Copp (Pendleton) gets on his soap box.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

read

[Ben Boulden · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fifth in the Joe Copp series, COPP ON ICE, is pure hardboiled fun. Joe Copp, the toughest most righteous P.I. in Southern California, is hired on a short term basis as the chief of police for the growing inland city of Brighton. The city manager has promised him 48 hours, but Joe will be lucky if he makes it 36. His mission: find Brighton PD's corrupt cops and kick every last one to the curb, dead or alive. And corruption is exactly what Joe finds. Enough to make him good and angry.

Heavy on the hardboiled--prose and attitude alike--COPP ON ICE reads like a shot of rock candy. The mystery quick and satisfying. The social commentary rough-edged, but illuminating and surprisingly relevant more than 25 years after its original release. The fun includes a climactic gunfight shot in the nude, more than a handful of murders, mostly cops, a house of sin and graft, sexual perversion and more. And Joe Copp, the man on a mission, the man with a code, the man who gets the job done, the man who is anything but an enigma, is always entertaining in his rough, over-the-top tough guy persona.