The Grave Above the Grave

Former NYPD commissioner Kerik (The Lost Son) stumbles in his fiction debut, a cliché-ridden thriller. Police Commissioner Rick Raymond, whose wife died in the 9/11 attacks and was himself near the Twin Towers when they collapsed, is riding high professionally and personally. He has a secret lover, Manhattan District Attorney Sheilah Dannis, who’s not only gorgeous but a rising political star with eyes on City Hall. Their relationship is imperiled after Raymond orders his driver to hit a fleeing terrorist suspect who just gunned down two cops in Times Square. The man dies gruesomely (“blood, like a red geyser, spurted from a hole in the top of his head”). That decision makes Raymond the focus of a grand jury inquiry, but Dannis’s unexplained recusal from the case raises suspicions about her reasons for doing so. Meanwhile, Raymond must deal with the possibility that the shooting was part of a larger plot. Awkward prose, plot developments out of a Bond movie, and an unsympathetic lead don’t bode well for the promised sequel. (Sept.)