Absolute Rage FROM THE PUBLISHER
"While New York City sizzles beneath a blanket of early summer humidity, the Karp family is happily taking refuge in their renovated farmhouse on Long Island's north shore. Karp's battles against the City's corrupt politicans are never-ending. His wife, Marlene, is training guard dogs on their picturesque acreage; Lucy is enjoying her summer break from Boston College and playing the part of the dutiful daughter, assisting with the running of the business and tending to her rambunctious twin brothers." The tide quickly changes, however, when Marlene befriends her beachside neighbor, Rose Wickham-Heeney, a northeastern aristocrat turned wife of West Virginia coal mine union leader Ralph "Red" Heeney. Soon after the fun-filled weeks of family barbecues and lazy afternoons with the Heeneys, the Karps discover that Rose, Red, and their daughter Lizzie, have been brutally murdered back home in McCullensburg. Irresistible force meets immovable object when the West Virginia governor appoints Karp as special prosecutor to bring justice to the corrupt town, its union chieftan, and his band of merry thugs. Marlene joins Karp as he searches for the killers and works to save his own family from an evil that runs as deep as the mines that fuel it.
SYNOPSIS
In Absolute Rage, what's at stake for the incorruptible prosecutor Butch Karp is nothing less than his personal code of honor—the imperative that drives him to protect his family above all else. A fast-rising, blue-collar Teamster with designs in the union presidency has been murdered in the mountains of West Virginia, along with his wife and youngest child. Karp is wary from the start about wading into such a politically dicey situation—and his fears are chillingly justified when killers target his own beloved family. Left to negiotiate a path through the deadly maelstrom of big-city corruption, Karp alone must restore justice—and save his family.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
The Karps kick the rubes, but don't emerge unscathed in the 14th installment of the successful Karp/Ciampi series. As in previous novels, the ball gets rolling with the meddling of the brainy and unstable Marlene Ciampi, who against her better judgment ("Don't get involved, tattoo it on your forehead, Ciampi!") falls for a New York neighbor's sob story about a long-simmering family feud in a West Virginia coal town. The sudden savage murders back in West Virginia of the neighbor and her daughter and her labor-agitator husband bring both Marlene and her husband, Butch Karp, down to the boonies in their legal capacity. Their teenage daughter, nun-in-training Lucy, falls hard for the neighbor's son, and the 10-year-old twins, Zik and Zak, now growing into distinct personalities, come along for the ride. As in other novels in the series, Marlene's antics bring danger to her family's doorstep and beyond this time resulting in a real Karp family tragedy. When disaster strikes, the ever volatile Marlene goes over the edge and calls in her trusty Vietnamese thug, Tran, and his gang of gold-hungry goons, with grisly results. While the novel displays Tanenbaum's trademark humor and adept plotting, the series has definitely taken an ominous twist with this book. Marlene (never a model of sanity) is, per usual, talking to her dogs, but now they're talking back to her. The author (who seems to greatly enjoy his book-length ruminations on the dynamics of long-lived marriage) has pulled off a coup: fans of the series will breathlessly await his next book, just to see if the Karp family can actually stand itself any more. (Aug. 13) Forecast: Talk about irresistible no fan worth his or her salt will miss this earthquake of a thriller. Massive advertising (including in Times Square) and a 10-city author tour should help Tanenbaum break previous sales records. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
In the 14th book in Tanenbaum's wildly popular Karp/Ciampi series, New York County Chief Assistant District Attorney Karp is disgruntled with his job after he is thwarted in his efforts to bring a few corrupt politicians to justice. Wife Marlene Ciampi's guard dog business is thriving, and while spending the summer at the family's Long Island farmhouse, she strikes up a friendship with neighbor Rose Heeney, a former New Yorker married to a union organizer in West Virginia. The Karp and Heeney children hit it off as well, leading Marlene to offer a summer job to 19-year-old Daniel Heeney. When his parents and ten-year-old sister are later brutally murdered at their home in McCullensburg, WV, he asks Marlene for help. At the same time, state and federal forces, concerned with the unbridled violence in West Virginia, hire Karp as a special prosecutor to clean up the corruption. Thus, lawyer Tanenbaum sets the stage for a typical Karp crisis but this time with even more devastating results than the norm. Expertly combining his prodigious knowledge of the legal system with the usual social concerns, he draws a compelling portrait of the unique and complex relationships between the Karps and their closest friends. For all popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/02.] Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., OH Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
AudioFile
Tanenbaum is "one of the country's most respected and successful trial lawyers," according to the dust cover. Maybe, but he doesn't seem to have ever met actual human beings. Never in this supposed legal thriller is a listener ever in danger of confusing any of Tanenbaum's characters with real people. Adults are remarkably self-satisfied, children incredibly self-possessed. A New York family of precocious youngsters and their lawyer parents are drawn into the aftermath of the assassination of a West Virginia union leader and his family. So unlikable and absurd are the characters and the plot that, in fairness, Nick Sullivan never has much chance to shine. Nevertheless, nothing he does numbs the bad experience of Tanenbaum's book. M.O. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
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