Lush Life

by Richard Price

New York's Lower East Side is a study in contrasts: wealth and hardship, million dollar apartments and public housing, fabulous restaurants and greasy bodegas.

When three white men are mugged (one of whom is shot), all hell breaks loose at the police station. Are the perps black and/or Hispanic, as one of the victims said, or is one of the so-called victims a perp? There are two "eyewitnesses" who only saw the three men together on the street. What really happened? And how on earth are the police ever going to solve the case when they don't trust one of the victims, one of the victims was drunk and passed out, and the other victim is dead?

There is something utterly lush about Price's incredible police procedural. The reader will not just meet the vics, but also the perps, the cops, the neighbors, the co-workers. . .

I could not stop reading this addictive novel. Read it. Read it now!

4/14/08