Red Hot Blues (Artie Cohen Series #1)

by Reggie Nadelson

Overview

Artie Cohen is a good-looking New York City cop with a taste for women and jazz and no intention of looking back to the past he left behind twenty-five years earlier in Moscow. In Red Hot Blues, he is faced with a case that leaves him no choice but to confront that past.

When a former KGB general is shot dead on live TV, Artie is compelled to take the case; the general was a friend of his father's. Artie doesn't have to go far until he is led into the heart of the Brighton Beach mafia, where the most lethal weapon on the street is rumored to be an elusive substance known as Red Mercury - an atomic weapon that has the terrifying advantage of being pocket-sized.

Artie stumbles upon a radioactive trail of atomic smuggling that leads all the way back to Moscow. For Artie to solve this case, he must reclaim his past and return to the home he left behind. It is in Moscow that he finds love, tragedy, and the truth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312291969
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/15/1998
Series:	Artie Cohen Series , #1
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

A journalist and documentary filmmaker, Reggie Nadelson is the author of the Artie Cohen novels, including Londongrad, Fresh Kills, Red Hook, Disturbed Earth, Red Hot Blues, Hot Poppies, Bloody London, and Sex Dolls. Comrade Rockstar, her biography of Dean Reed, the American emigre who became the biggest rock star in the Soviet Union, is under option to Tom Hanks. Born in Greenwich Village, Nadelson now lives in downtown Manhattan.

Editorial Reviews

"The novel works on multiple levels: as a suspense-filled thriller; as an atmosphere-drenched look at Russian noir; and as an introduction to a captivating new hard-boiled hero." - Booklist

"Fast-moving action, a scary scenario, and hidden backgrounds." - Library Journal

"A mine of taut, snappy writing... The times they are a-changin', and Nadelson has her finger on the pulse." - The London Times Saturday

"A Maltese Falcon of a plot and an atmospherically decadent Moscow." - The Guardian

"A ripping yarn." - The London Observer

"What is good about the novel is the slickness and quality of Nadelson's writing, and her capacity to create atmosphere: the dialogue and the streets, apartments and dachas of New York and Moscow fairly zing with life." - The Daily Telegraph

From the Publisher

When former KGB General Gennadi Ustinov is murdered on a live New York TV talk show, NYPD Detective Artie Cohen is called in. Cohen grew up in Moscow, where Ustinov had been his father's closest friend. His investigation leads him on a twisting path peopled with the Russian Mafia of Brooklyn's Brighton Beach, the other guests on the TV show and Chaim Brodsky, owner of a media empire that includes the TV station where the murder occurred. Ustinov's killer is soon identified as a young Russian named Lev, who worked as an "atomic mule," selling stolen radiation samples to anyone able to pay. In a rage at the immorality of these transactions, Cohen kills Lev. Cohen then flies to Moscow, which he comes to view as a hell where people will sell their souls for money to live on, though this dim vision lightens up when he falls in love with the beautiful Svetlana. Cohen's probing leads to death for the people close to him before he finally solves the puzzle. If Nadelson's debut is hampered by too many characters and plot complications, it makes up in energy what it lacks in elegance. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"I was never going back to Moscow," vows allegedly cheerful New York cop Artie Cohen. It's been something of a mantra for him ever since he emigrated 25 years ago: No more Mother Russia, no more family friends, nothing to do with more recent ‚migr‚s. But when ex-KGB Gen. Gennadi Ustinov, a colleague of Artie's father, is assassinated on The Teddy Flowers Show the day after he calls Artie—and the day before they agree to meet—Artie feels himself getting pulled back: first to scrutinize Ustinov's fellow-guests on the show (wheeler-dealer Anatoly Sverdloff, stripper Olga Gross, capitalist success story Tomas Saroyan, fascist Leonid Zalenko, Muscovite British writer Gavin Crowe), then to check out the Russian community in Brighton Beach (think gangsters, borscht, and street crime), and suddenly—whoosh!—right past the assassin (who, after all, was caught on videotape) to a plot involving some villainous stuff called red mercury ("fear in a bottle") that has arms dealers around the globe standing at attention. Inevitably, the trail will lead to a secret laboratory and an uninhibited new lover in (where else?) Moscow. A louring debut for fans of Martin Cruz Smith and Philip Kerr—though Nadelson spins a much shaggier tale than either of his models, with new complications coming down the street every ten minutes.

Kirkus Reviews