A former Irish copper (really, that’s what Turow calls him, a copper) now an ex-alcoholic flunky in a powerful law firm goes on the hunt for embezzled money and a lost colleague in a fictitious Caribbean country. Mack the copper dishes what is supposed to pass for gritty street-wise philosophy, doesn’t seem to enjoy the gratuitous sex sprinkled liberally across the novel, nor come to think of it, does he enjoy much of anything. I laughed aloud on several occasions at Turow’s purple prose. The writing is not that far from Keillor’s Guy Noir parodies of gruff detectives. Not a good sign.
