Bad to the Bone

In his fourth adventure, ex-New York City cop Stanley Moodrow, now a portly curmudgeon and private eye, is pitted against Davis Craddock, leader of Hanover House, a 200-member cult located in Moodrow's old beat, the Lower East Side. After being hired by a mother of a Hanoverian to find her grandson, Moodrow stumbles onto Craddock's real plan--to produce and market PURE, a drug Craddock designed that is 30 times more addictive than heroin. Craddock kidnaps Moodrow's girlfriend, who foolishly went undercover, leading to a violent confrontation when Moodrow and his cop friend Tilley try to rescue her. Solomita ( Forced Entry ) balances the familiar, such as cynically resigned cop banter and cranky police officials, with the unexpected, such as the pairing of Craddock and his partner, Wendell, a funny perversion of classic duos like Bonnie and Clyde. Mostly, however, he focusses on Moodrow, a sleuth to identify with, who reaches the top of a staircase sweating and swearing, and is anything but gung-ho, and on the grim heart of the Lower East Side, with all its historic evolution and layers of violent underlife. (May)