Product Description

Investigating a series of murders that target mobsters and otherwise corrupt individuals, Dante Stagnoro attempts to learn the identity of the killer, who calls himself Raptor and who taunts Stagnoro with phone calls after every hit. Reprint. NYT.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1895296 in Books
• Published on: 1995-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 367 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Mystery veteran Gores (Dead Man; 32 Cadillacs) claims psycho-thriller territory with this risk-taking, rewarding crime novel. After linking her boss and lover to organized crime, film-company exec Molly Dalton is killed in what looks like a mob execution. Her husband, Will, a paleoanthropologist, loses himself in his work, studying violence and sexuality in apes. As more professional-style murders occur, San Francisco cop Dante Stagnoro, in charge of SFPD's organized crime unit, suspects that Will, perhaps being privy to Molly's information, may be another mob target, even though someone calling himself "Raptor" is claiming the kills in disingenuous, macabre phone messages. Drawing on a variety of conventions and styles, from the procedural to the gothic, Gores wedges a passionate lecture on evolution into a taut investigation and waxes ornate in the Raptor's chilling and vivid reveries. A professional killer from New Jersey is the likely suspect for a few of the hits, but the real criminal mind is extremely well hidden, right to the end, when few of the hoods are still standing. In his latest, Gores demonstrates masterful narrative sleight-of-hand.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
The day before she dies, brilliant, randy Atlas Entertainment corporate counsel Molly Dalton phones her paleoanthropologist husband, Will--estranged from her since he returned early from an African trip to find her deeply immersed in the delights of Atlas president Kosta Gounaris--to ask for a meeting about a computer file she's found that ties Atlas's assets to the Mob. Stuck in traffic on the Bay Bridge, Will arrives too late for their dinner date and misses his chance to get executed along with her. Fifteen months later, as grieving Will marks his return from Africa to Berkeley by giving a lecture on violence and evolution, Lt. Dante Stagnoro, head of San Francisco's organized crime task force, reviews the series of killings that proceeded from Molly to a crooked cop, a druglord, a mob lawyer, and so on. The killer, identifying himself as Raptor, repeatedly phones Stagnoro to taunt him and at one point leaves a message pinned to his chest as he sleeps; the lieutenant is determined not to let Will become Raptor's final victim. The interplay between killer and cop has been done much better before, and the mystery fizzles like a damp firecracker, but the interleaving of the story with excerpts from Will's lecture and Raptor's confession shows just how magnificently ambitious this failure is. Assassination as evolution? Only the callowest of first- timers--or an old pro as canny as Gores (Dead Man, 1993, etc.)- -would ever have the brass to root an otherwise unmemorable tale in such a dazzling conceit. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Difficult task done reasonably well
I should state outfront that I am a Joe Gores fan, and that I served as a technical advisor on this book and was given a small, almost unnoticed walk-on. The book takes on two really tough tasks: It is written in two voices, a first for Gores; and it takes on a philosophical theme and tries to interweave it with a mystery story.As much as I like Gores' work, I don't think he quite succeeded, here, although even the partial failure is a very good read, and one does care who-dun-it. He writes good characters and his setting in San Francisco is evocative. Those not familiar with his work might do better to begin with 32 Cadillacs or one of the DKA series, then read Wolf Time before taking on Menaced Assasin.

Stilted & Difficult Reading
Menaced Assissin is an interesting book of murder & revenge. However, it is filled with a disertation of evolutionary theories throughout which could have been condensed. I sometimes got the feeling that the writer's main focus was to demonstrate his knowledge, and push his idea of evolution on the reader by embedding it in this novel. The reading was also stilted and difficult to read at times. However, it was an interesting story with graphic descriptions of the killings, which kept me interested in knowing who the killer was.