2014.5 REVIEW – The Execution by Dick Wolf

The Execution
by Dick Wolf

Copyright: 2014
Pages: 335
Rating: 4/5
Read: Jan. 26 – Feb. 1, 2014
Challenge: No challenge
Yearly count: 5
Format: Print
Source: Publicist for review

Blurb: A number of bodies are discovered on the United States’ border with Mexico, each carved with a bizarre symbol: a hummingbird. Detective Cecilia Garza – dubbed the Ice Queen among her colleagues at the Mexican intelligence agency because she’s famous for never showing an ounce of weakness – arrives at the scene and recognizes the image immediately; it is the calling card of a killer called Chuparosa, a man both feared and celebrated for his cunning and brutality. Known to be incorruptible in a seemingly lawless land, Detective Garza has pursued this killer for years, yet knows little about him, except that he’s merciless and heading to New York City – along with the rest of the world.

It’s United Nations Week in Manhattan and Jeremy Fisk – an integral member of the NYPD’s Intelligence Division, an antiterror unit modeled on the CIA – can’t let his grief over a devastating loss keep him from his duty to safeguard the city and the world’s most powerful leaders. Complicating matters is the startling news of a mass murder on the beach in nearby Rockaway – and the arrival of a beautiful and assertive Mexican detective determined to do things her way.

To have a chance at finding and stopping Chuparosa, these uneasy allies must meld their opposing investigative styles. They soon discover that there’s much more to this threat than meets the eye – and Fisk will have to learn the hard way that justice is not always blind.

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Review: I received a copy of this book for free from a publicist for review purposes, all opinions expressed below are my own.

This is the second book in the Jeremy Fisk series. I read an ARC of the first book, The Intercept, shortly before it came out. Even before looking back over that review, I had vague recollections of being a little irritated by something within that book. After reading my review, I realized that it was because Mr. Wolf made the decision to kill off a pretty important character in the first book in the series.

So I guess you could say that I actually went into this book with a little bit of trepidation. How would Mr. Wolf handle things minus Fisk’s partner? Overall, I am quite pleased with the direction this one decision ended up going. I don’t want to spoil anything too big here, but I really think that it opens up Fisk’s character a lot more than I had ever thought possible. He’s a wounded man from losing his girlfriend and partner. He’s angry. And he’s sick and tired of everyone tip-toeing around him in regards to her death. The reader gets to see a lot more of Jeremy Fisk than he would want us to see just by the way he handles his feelings about her death after a little bit of time has passed.

The storyline of this book is very fast-paced and interesting. There’s really a lot going on in this book. You have Fisk trying to coordinate UN Week. And you have Cecilia Garza, a Mexican police officer in town on her country’s Presidential protection detail. Cecilia may be on that protection detail, but there’s a lot more that has drawn her to New York City than she wants to admit. Fisk and Garza have to work together to catch a very brutal killer before he has a chance to kill someone else.

I think what I liked most about this storyline (as well as the storyline to The Intercept) is that it felt real and relevant. It seems very hard to keep things relevant these days. But somehow Mr. Wolf is able to do just that. Having Jeremy Fisk work in the Intel division, rather than just be your standard homicide detective, makes for a really interesting protagonist with endless possibilities of story lines.

Overall I felt like this was as really good book. The storyline was interesting. The writing was very good. The characters were extremely well-developed. I’m very glad that I gave Mr. Wolf a second chance after only feeling lukewarm about his first book. In my opinion it’s a really good installment in this series that has me wanting more Jeremy Fisk.

Favorite quotes:

The explosive noise of the guns had set off a chain reaction, sheets of wet snow dropping from the limbs of the pine trees surrounding Jeremy Fisk. Even after the gunfire stopped, Fisk could hear limbs snapping, snow thudding to earth, a circular cataract expanding, fading away from him like ripples in a frigid pond.

And then the endless forest … went silent.

My God, thought Fisk. They’re all dead. (p.1)

And then I also wanted to share with you a quick one-liner that really made me chuckle just because of the absolute truth to it. To set it up a little bit, it’s spoken to Jeremy Fisk by Magnus Jenssen, the man responsible for Fisk’s girlfriend’s death.

What is a jury trial now but a television entertainment show? (p. 89)