Broken Machines
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Broken Machines is a gritty mystery in the tradition of Robert Parker and Elmore Leonard.
James Joseph Donovan stares out his own window, watching as the rain soaks Manhattan and puts a damper on his thirty-ninth birthday. J.J. Donovan is a private consultant - an expert people turn to when they've run out of options. Before the day is out, Janet Fein, a social worker friend, will ask Donovan to help a little boy named Clifford Brice.
Clifford's mother Ruby - a prostitute and a heroin addict - has been brutally murdered. The police have a suspect in custody, but Janet and Clifford don't think it's the right man. The police don't seem to care. Janet wants Donovan and his eccentric partner, Doctor Boris Koulomzin, to find out the truth.
Neither man can abandon the bright young boy. As they are formulating a plan, there is a second murder... and an attempt on Clifford himself. Donovan finds himself going undercover at a dank manufacturing plant in Brooklyn, where the rats, the criminals, and the immigrant laborers all struggle to make ends meet. It is a place where the people, like the machines, are broken. In this place, there is little room for repair or redemption, but Donovan pushes on. In the process, he and Boris expose a fraud, catch a murderer, and manage to blow up the better part of a city block.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
There's always room in the universe for another clever private investigator, even one who's not licensed. Meet James Joseph Donovan. Donovan doesn't work alone; his "genius" partner, Dr. Boris Mikail Koulomzin, lives in the apartment next door. Their sphere of activity is the greater New York City area; they're "consultants" who help people who have run out of options with the legal system. Shades of Travis McGee! Leahey's first mystery starts out with a bang: Ruby Brice, a streetwalker and heroin addict, turns up dead. Urged on by Janet Fein, a brash social worker, Donovan agrees to help Ruby's 10-year-old son, Clifford, who happens to be very precocious, find his mother's killer. The one clue Donovan has is that Clifford says that Ruby had mentioned the National Manufacturing Corp., located in Brooklyn. When Donovan fortuitously lands a job there, the investigation gets into full swing. The three owners are infighting among themselves, and the workers may not be what they seem. Soon there are several more murders, both inside and outside of the factory. In the meantime, Donovan gets beaten up, Dr. Koulomzin faints at a murder scene and Clifford goes missing. The layers of muck and mire seem endless as Donovan uncovers one loathsome scheme after another being hatched by one, or more, of the owners. Justice finally triumphs in a clever ruse hatched by Donovan and his friends. Readers will be eager for more adventures of this engaging PI and his compatriots.
