Review of "Central Park West: A Crime Novel" by James Comey

It would be hard to find someone more qualified to write a legal thriller than James Comey. Comey was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; a U.S. Attorney in charge of the Southern District of New York; a Deputy Attorney General in the Department of Justice; and a Director of the FBI.

Author James Comey

After leaving the FBI, Comey wrote several non-fiction books, then decided to try his hand at novels. In an interview with NPR, Comey acknowledged, "An editor of non-fiction nudged me to, and at first I resisted. And the farther I got from the work, the easier it became to think about giving it a shot. And so I decided to try, and found it addictive. And now I want this to be my job. It's not a hobby for me. I need to have a job. And I found this harder than nonfiction, but a lot more fun." Luckily, Comey's first novel, Central Park West. is fun for the reader as well.

*****

The Story

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Nora Carleton has her dream job. Nora is six-feet-tall, with a chin-length auburn bob, and what her dad calls BBB eyes - Big, Brown, and Beautiful. Nora also has a 5-year-old daughter named Sophie, and amicably shares custody with Sophie's dad Nick.



After Nora drops Sophie off at school, she hurries to her office at Manhattan's St. Andrew's Plaza.....



.....where she's preparing to prosecute Dominic "The Nose" D'Amico, a recently made member of the Mafia's Gambino Crime Family.



The key witness against D'Amico is a thief nicknamed Frenchie, who stole high-end artworks for The Nose. Frenchie is scheduled to testify today, after which he'll enter the witness protection (WITSEC) program.



Meanwhile, in another Manhattan courtroom, a woman named Kyra Burke.....



.....will be tried for murdering her estranged husband Antonio "Tony" Burke, the former governor of New York. Tony was a sexual predator who was rumored to do favors for 'bad people', and Nora is on CCTV entering Tony's building right before he was killed.



In the Mafia trial, when it appears that Frenchie's evidence will convict D'Amico, the mobster secretly passes a note to the prosecution team, in an effort to make a deal. The missive says D'Amico has information about who REALLY killed former governor Tony Burke.....and it's not Tony's wife Kyra but rather a Mafia assassin. Unfortunately D'Amico is shot before he can spill the beans, and he's found with a dead canary in his mouth - a warning to those who might cooperate with law enforcement.

Thus, Kyra Burke is put on trial for murdering her politician husband Tony Burke. However, prosecutor Nora Carleton and her team proceed to investigate the former governor's homicide anyway, in an attempt to identify 'the real killer', presumably a mob hitter. Nora's colleagues include: Benny Dugan - a six-foot-five, 250 pound detective who's been investigating the Mafia for 30 years;



FBI Special Agent Jessica Watson - a fresh-out-of-Quantico agent with smooth dark skin and a short afro;



and Carmen Garcia - the chief of Violent and Organized Crime at St. Andrew's Plaza.



In addition to showing some of the the inner workings of the Southern District of New York, Comey's novel highlights the rivalry between the Manhattan D.A. and the U.S. Attorney's Office, who compete to prosecute the same high profile cases, for the credit and the glory. In an interview with NPR, Comey puts it as follows, "I used to describe it to people as blood sworn enemies, except when they're living together and having a baby. So there was a lot that we did together and a lot we fought over. I used to try and take the D.A. [Robert] Morgenthau to lunch on a regular basis to try and build, repair, whatever damage was done." Comey also observed, "From my upbringing and my professional experience [the] FBI and NYPD are Godzilla and King Kong. They're like siblings — sometimes they play really well together, sometimes not so much."





Besides all the squabbling among the D.A., U.S. Attorney, and FBI, real world law enforcement isn't as neat and clean as seen on television series. Comey gives us the real scoop in a scene where investigator Benny Dugan tells federal prosecutor Nora Carleton, "I worry you're aiming at the wrong target, with all this 'truth' stuff. Our job is to lock up bad people to protect good people....Sometimes that means we gotta use other bad people to do it. Sometimes that means people we know are motherless fucks are gonna get away....so [all the people sleeping soundly] can stay that way."





Along with a wealth of colorful characters and fascinating police procedural details (Hint to the criminally inclined: Be careful about ordering from Starbucks], the book has great courtroom scenes. I enjoyed the novel and look forward to more books in the series.

Thanks to Netgalley, James Comey, and Mysterious Press for a copy of the manuscript.

Rating: 4 stars