Reggie Nadelson's detective is Artie Cohen, a naturalised Russian-American who has childhood memories of Moscow and his Francophile mother, his KGB father. The novel begins with long, rambling conversations between Artie and an old friend, Sid McKay - an old black gay man who lives on the Red Hook waterfront and has a deep background in journalism and the history of this junked-up neighbourhood with it's long view of Liberty and the gap where the two towers used to be. Ms Nadelson is tremendously keen on atmosphere and she floods her prose with the sights, sounds and feel of New York. The plot gets a little lost in this thick-cut wedge of the Big Apple, but if you give it time the story emerges and meanders towards a strange and frightening episode where Artie is lucky to survive a boat ride on a stormy night. It's all about location, loft-life and lost love for Lily, despite his recent marriage to Maxine. When it comes, the solution to all the meandering is slightly beside the point, but I would read another Nadelson if one came my way.