Apaches

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
July 1997

Lorenzo Carcaterra's stark and brutally honest writing has brought his readers deep into the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City, where he grew up and perhaps, to a great extent, where his demons still lie, flushed out through graphically cathartic writing. Carcaterra is the author of the autobiographical A Safe Place and the phenomenal bestseller Sleepers, the publishing event of 1995 and the catalyst for one of the top Hollywood films of the following year. Carcaterra returns with Apaches, his eagerly anticipated first novel and his darkest book yet in its vivid descriptions of the violence that humans inflict upon one another.

Apaches returns to the mean streets of New York City in the early 1980s. A lethal new form of smokable cocaine, nicknamed "crack" for its wicked high, has made its appearance in dealers' vials on any and every street corner. The results are devastating. Violence is escalating as fast as morals can crumble — "feeding the high" leads people on both sides of the drug trade to desperate, unspeakable measures to ensure the circulation of the drug.

Boomer Frontieri, a New York City detective forced to retire after being wounded in a drug bust, is brought back to life by a crime he cannot ignore. A 12-year-old girl is brutally kidnapped, and when an old friend turns to him for help, Boomer returns to the life he once knew and thirsts for again: the life of a cop. Upon investigation, the kidnapping turns out to be something much, much worse, an almost unspeakable demonstration of evil andabuse.Instantly, Boomer knows what has to be done in the name of justice.

Dead-Eye. Pins. Geronimo. Reverend Jim. Mrs. Columbo. They were great cops once, all of them. But they are cops no more. Boomer Frontieri brings them all together, back to a life where they face almost certain death, a life where they are Apaches — a renegade unit working on its own. Some call them heroes; some consider them enemies or outlaws. But the grisly reality that the Apaches see is one where good and bad, right and wrong, living and dead, are virtually indecipherable.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Remember these names: Boomer. Dead-Eye. Pins. Geronimo. Reverend Jim. Mrs. Columbo. They were great cops. The best cops. But they are cops no more. Now they are apaches - a renegade unit working on their own. It is the early 1980s. Crack cocaine has made its devastating appearance. Violence is escalating and so is an unnerving lack of morality. Things are happening that have never happened before. One of those things is the brutal kidnapping of an innocent 12-year-old girl. But the kidnapper has made a deadly mistake. He has brought Boomer Frontieri back to life, back to the streets. And back into action. A New York City detective forced to retire after being wounded in a drug bust, Boomer thirsts to return to the life he loved - the life of a cop. When an old friend turns to him for help, Boomer has the excuse he needs. And when the simple kidnapping turns into something more, something much more evil, even more horrifying, Boomer realizes that he can once again find a way to serve justice.

FROM THE CRITICS

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