Last month I was at the Brooklyn Book Festival and I attended a panel discussion there featuring crime writers. I am a fan of Michael Connolly and he was on the panel so I thought it might be interesting. Also on the panel was Gabriel Cohen. I never had read anything by him but had read that he wrote about a detective in Brooklyn and I thought since I was in Brooklyn, it might be interesting to hear him. He read from the first chapter of his new book. It was just a few pages but I immediately knew that I wanted to read that book.

In his new book, “The Ninth Step” the action starts with the detective at home eating his breakfast. Not very exciting, right ? Then the doorbell rings and the person at the door starts telling a story with much vagueness. Then comes the hook: the man at the door killed the brother of the detective years ago.

If that is not enough to make you want to read this, let me add a few bits. The detective wants to find something that will help solve the cold case of his brother’s murder for which he feels partly at fault. Then the cold case of his brother’s murder moves from an apparently random robbery into the Mafia, longshoremen, and a little known World War 2 event. The detective also is involved with solving what seems to be a rather routine but odd murder which gets involved in a possible terrorist plot, massive injustice, Homeland Security, and more. Part of fun and value of this book is the way the author handles these events (and often surprised me in the process) so I really don’t want to say too much here in case you decide to try this book.

“The Ninth Step” stands on its own as a great read but it is the 4th in a series about Detective Jack Leightner. I completely enjoyed it and plan to look for the earlier books in this series.