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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsA Cold Caseby Philip Gourevitch
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:From a prize-winning author and, in Elmore Leonard's words, "a knockout writer," comes a masterfully written and gripping tale of a determined investigator who reopens an unresolved case of double homicide in New York nearly thirty years after the brutal event. Philip Gourevitch vividly evokes the almost vanished gangland of New York in the sixties, and carries us deep into the lives and minds, the passions and perplexities, of two extraordinary men who embody opposing but quintessentially American codes of being — the lawman Andy Rosenzweig and the outlaw Frankie Koehler. With A Cold Case, Gourevitch masterfully transforms a criminal investigation into a searching literary reckoning with the urges that drive one man to murder and another to hunt murderers.
Review:"In 1970, a New York criminal named Frankie Koehler killed two men in cold blood, then disappeared. Over the decades, he was all but given up for dead. Nothing haunts a cop like loose ends, however, and 30 years later lawman and fugitive at long last crossed paths. Basing this book on his article of the same title, New Yorker staff writer and NBCC and L.A. Times award-winning author Gourevitch revisits this case. Gourevitch's first book (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda) dealt with the Rwandan genocide and that region's judicial vacuum; the scope here is smaller but, as Gourevitch shows, murder is a seemingly inescapable aspect of the human condition. In clean prose, the author follows former NYPD officer Andy Rosenzweig (now an investigator with the Manhattan D.A.'s office), who, like Koehler, was raised on the streets of postwar New York, a city that has all but disappeared except in the hands of capable writers. And Gourevitch lets his near-perfect pitch dialogue do much of the work. 'I wouldn't kill anybody for money under any conditions....That's a scumbag does that,' Koehler says. The only jarring moments in this otherwise elegant and restrained narrative are the sudden intrusions of the pronoun 'I.' This residue of New Yorker style reminds readers that the material is not entirely fresh. But that is a minor complaint, for as Rosenzweig says, quoting a fellow officer, 'Who speaks for the dead? Nobody. As a rule, nobody speaks for the dead, unless we do.' Gourevitch has secured a place next to Rosenzweig in that lonely and all-important choir. 12 b&w photos." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:"Gripping, first rate... beyond the outright suspense here... is a meditation on the very essence of crime." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review:"This terse, eloquent book reminded me of many of the classic European novels, because the expected end is not the end at all. The mystery, it turns out, is not how these murders occurred or how the killer was caught but, rather, the nature of crime itself." Scott Turow
Review:"Part study of the criminal mind, part appraisal of the strange mechanics of justice, it is a trenchant, pithy, atmospheric book." Times Literary Supplement
Review:"The book's province lies somewhere between those of Cain and Camus... Matthew Arnold said a novel by Tolstoy is not a work of art but a piece of life... An inversion applies here: a piece of life by Philip Gourevitch is a work of art." Jonathan Kiefer, San Francisco Chronicle
Review:"Gourevitch is one of the finest journalists working today; his portrait of gangland in New York in the 1960s is brilliant." Sebastian Junger
Review:"Using a snappy, terse prose style that mimics a police procedural... A Cold Case is a lively, vastly readable book." John Freeman, The Denver Post
Synopsis:From a prize-winning author and, in Elmore Leonards words, “a knockout writer,” comes a masterfully written and gripping tale of a determined investigator who reopens an unresolved case of double homicide in New York nearly thirty years after the brutal event. Philip Gourevitch vividly evokes the almost vanished gangland of New York in the sixties, and carries us deep into the lives and minds, the passions and perplexities, of two extraordinary men who embody opposing but quintessentially American codes of being—the lawman Andy Rosenzweig and the outlaw Frankie Koehler. With A Cold Case, Gourevitch masterfully transforms a criminal investigation into a searchingliterary reckoning with the urges that drive one man to murder and another to hunt murderers. Synopsis:From a prizewinning author and, in Elmore Leonard's words, "a knockout writer, " comes a beautifully written and gripping tale of a determined investigator who reopens an unresolved case of double homicide in New York nearly 30 years after the brutal event.
About the AuthorPhilip Gourevitch, a staff writer at The New Yorker, lives in New York City. His last book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, won the National Book Critics Circle and Los Angeles Times Book Awards. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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