Publishers Weekly
With his frenetic fifth Shane Scully novel, bestseller Cannell (Cold Hit) dishes out the action in forklift-sized servings. Casting aside the rules like never before, LAPD detective Scully conducts his own seek-and-destroy mission after his wife, fellow cop Alexa, is found shot in the head. As Alexa clings to life, Scully's efforts to track down her attacker lead him into the violent, vengeful world of rap music, lorded over by two of its most feared executives, Lou Maluga and his wife, Stacy, known in the trade as "the white sister." Without pause to sleep or eat, Scully fights and claws his way along, burning friends, violating laws, using his charm as well as his fists before coming face to face with his enemy in Las Vegas. Cannell's hard-boiled, if at times over-rehearsed prose is well suited to his subject matter, though some readers may have trouble with his hero's tendency to suddenly shift character from tough guy to touchy-feely 21st-century man. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
The 12th Shane Scully novel takes place in the violent world of Los Angeles gangsta rap music. Shane's detective wife, Alexa, doesn't return home following a meeting with another cop. Later that night, an apparent gang member is found dead in her abandoned car, handcuffed and murdered with Alexa's service revolver. Shane soon tracks Alexa to Compton, CA, but finds her shot in the head and critically wounded. As local African American politicians and activists exploit the murder, Shane attempts to find the real killer and clear Alexa and himself. An uncooperative LAPD and two feuding rap record companies using gang members as muscle counter his efforts. The story leads to a bloody confrontation outside Las Vegas as well as critical personal decisions for Shane. As with his previous novels, Cannell keeps the tale fast paced and filled with colorful characters. Narrator Scott Brick does an excellent job; recommended for all audio collections.-Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ., Parkersburg Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
More mindless action in the Shane Scully series (Vertical Coffin, 2004, etc.), with our hero adrift in the wild world of rap. What's an LAPD homicide dick doing in the middle of a hip-hop turf war? The answer's a bit on the muddled side, but then clarity (or plausibility) has never really been the point of this hot-to-trot series. So there's this corpse very dead from a bullet behind the ear: Alexa Scully's gun, Alexa's car, but no Alexa to be found. Has she been kidnapped? Turns out that's not the case. Thanks to some wayward plotting, Lieutenant Alexa Scully, universally liked, a hero cop with an unblemished record is unhesitatingly named . . . leading suspect? Huh? At any rate, only Shane is prepared to call an obvious frame a frame, but nobody takes him seriously, since it's well-known that love is blind, and that Shane is one bravura lover: "I love her with a power so pure it sometimes frightens me." Consequently, he's forced to investigate solo. But soon enough, he turns up a connection between the corpse and the music industry that draws him into a world both foreign to him and infinitely more violent than he could have imagined. Two hip-hop companies are engaged in a vicious, take-no-prisoners war, having to do with talent and, of course, money. Married to the boss of one of these is Stacy Meluga, the White Sister of the title. "Kind of the Lady Macbeth of hip-hop" is one of the gentler thoughts Shane has about her as they become more closely acquainted. Though he doesn't quite know how, Shane is sure it's Stacy who's behind his beloved wife's woes. Inevitably, there's a shoot-out during which Shane behaves with his customary derring-do. And at the end of which is the usualrough-hewn attempt at explanation. Hip-hop, slam-bang, slap-dash.
