The Player

Starred review from June 30, 2014
Verner’s lively narration makes for an entertaining ride for the fifth novel in Parks’s series chronicling the adventures of Newark Star-Ledger reporter Carter Ross. The story centers on a shady urban renewal project plagued by environmental misdeeds and cover-ups, as a sordid family conflict surrounding a recently murdered real estate developer unfolds. Verner brings a compelling first-person voice to the protagonist Ross, who finds himself juggling the caper with the demands of his complicated love life and the stresses of print journalism in an increasingly digital age. Verner’s tone conveys both Ross’s earnest commitment to try to do right by his conflicting obligations and his sometimes bumbling nature. The juicy cast of characters provides Verner with ample opportunities to shine. His turn as the murdered developer’s gruff father—an aging slum lord with a few tricks up his sleeve—is especially memorable. A Minotaur hardcover.

January 27, 2014
Carter Ross looks into the outbreak of a debilitating and sometimes fatal illness within a poor neighborhood of Newark, N.J., in Shamus Award–winner Parks’s engaging fifth mystery featuring the investigative newspaper journalist (after 2013’s The Good Cop). Soon Ross comes down with the same illness and suspects an environmental cause. He discovers that a majority of the workers at a shopping center complex breaking ground nearby have exhibited the same brittle bones and flu-like symptoms as local residents. Then the chief developer of the shopping center, Vaughn McAlister, turns up dead—the victim of a baseball bat to the skull. Ross digs into McAlister’s background and churns up a noxious slurry of underhanded political and business collusion, mob links, and personal drama. Meanwhile, Ross juggles stunning news from an old lover and his mother’s well-meaning meddling in his romantic life. Parks smoothly blends grit and wit, though a muddled climax dulls the final punch. Agent: Dan Conaway, Writers House.