cover image The Face Behind the Mask

The Face Behind the Mask

John Minahan. W. W. Norton & Company, $13.95 (191pp) ISBN 978-0-393-02252-0

Detective John Rawlings has been a cop in New York City for 28 years. He's been around a bit (Great Hotel Robbery and Great Diamond Robbery), but is nonetheless appalled by a recent trail of victims left by a handsome, smooth-talking rapist. While eluding a trap, the rapist takes a policewoman hostage. ""Little John'' and his partner track him from Manhattan to the Bronx to Brighton Beach, where he has holed up in an old hotel. A chief of detectives with one eye on the five o'clock news provides comic relief, and the courtroom scene at the end offers a surprise conclusion. Throughout, ``Little John'' waxes avuncular on assorted topicsin a voice that blends elements of Jack Webb and Travis McGee. Minehan also wrote Jeremy and A Sudden Silence. January 20