{"product_id":"fritz-maloneisbn-9780345482181","title":"Fritz Malone","description":"\u003cb\u003e“[An] amazing thriller . . . [Richard] Hawke’s dialogue is sharp and snappy and the plot moves with all the energy of New York City.”—\u003ci\u003eCleveland Plain Dealer\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA child of Hell’s Kitchen and the bastard son of a beloved former police commissioner, Fritz Malone is all too familiar with New York City’s rougher side. So when a gunman opens fire at the crowded Thanksgiving Day parade, Fritz steps into action, giving chase. He then learns that someone dubbed “Nightmare” has been taunting the city’s leaders for weeks—and there’s more carnage to come, unless the city meets the madman’s impossible demands. The nervous police need an outside man, and Fritz fits the bill. Racing furiously against time, Fritz finds himself confounded by Nightmare’s multiple masks and messengers. But the dark story behind the story soon begins to emerge, and when Fritz zeroes in on the terrible truth, the killer retaliates by making things personal. Now Fritz must grapple with his deepest fear: Sometimes nightmares really do come true.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eSpeak of the Devil\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hawke razzle-dazzles us with . . . bada-bing narration and quirky, well-drawn characters.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Packed] with a breathless pace and hairpin turns.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSouth Florida Sun Sentinel\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fast-moving, first-rate . . . Hawke’s plot grabs us by the throat. . . . He keeps the suspense mounting.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Solidly entertaining . . . Hawke makes a big splash on the thriller scene with his debut novel.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eSpeak of the Devil\u003c\/i\u003e] tours the city with unusual streetwise panache . . . but this isn’t a book that coasts on its urban geography. It lives by its wits, and its wits would work anywhere.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A bang-bang thriller . . . We are absolutely powerless to stop reading.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] deftly paced debut that crackles and pops from page 1.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thrill-a-minute pacing and inspired plot twists.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A rare combination of intrigue and intensity.”\u003cb\u003e—Michael Connelly\u003c\/b\u003e“[An] amazing thriller . . . [Richard] Hawke’s dialogue is sharp and snappy and the plot moves with all the energy of New York City.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eCleveland Plain Dealer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Hawke razzle-dazzles us with . . . bada-bing narration and quirky, well-drawn characters.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Packed] with a breathless pace and hairpin turns.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSouth Florida Sun Sentinel\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fast-moving, first-rate . . . Hawke’s plot grabs us by the throat. . . . He keeps the suspense mounting.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Solidly entertaining . . . Hawke makes a big splash on the thriller scene with his debut novel.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eSpeak of the Devil\u003c\/i\u003e] tours the city with unusual streetwise panache . . . but this isn’t a book that coasts on its urban geography. It lives by its wits, and its wits would work anywhere.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A bang-bang thriller . . . We are absolutely powerless to stop reading.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] deftly paced debut that crackles and pops from page 1.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Thrill-a-minute pacing and inspired plot twists.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A rare combination of intrigue and intensity.”\u003cb\u003e—Michael Connelly\u003c\/b\u003eRichard Hawke lives in New York City. This is his first novel. Visit his website at www.RHawke.com.I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      If she had known she would be dead in another five minutes, maybe she   wouldn’t have swatted her son so hard. That’s just my guess. His   balloon had been drifting into my face, that was the problem. It wasn’t   bugging me, but it was bugging his mother. He was a towheaded kid with   a round pink face. The balloon was larger than his head. I couldn’t say   one way or the other if the kid was having fun, but Mom clearly wasn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Ezra, if I have to tell you one more time.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    She seemed to be wound awfully tight for nine-thirty in the morning.   But I’ve never been a parent, so I’m hardly the person to judge. Maybe   the kid was an absolute handful and his actions drained his mother   daily of her reservoir of patience. Maybe the reservoir wasn’t terribly   deep to begin with. Or maybe the two were running late that morning and   Mom hadn’t gotten her caffeine jangle for the day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Maybe this, maybe that. Maybes all over the place. Cheaper than a dime   donut, as my father used to growl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was a Thursday. Thanksgiving is always a Thursday, so that part is   easy. Fall was playing out nice and slow. The trees in Central Park   were more yellow and red than I’d seen them in years. A high, bright   sun was sending down just about zero warmth through the bracingly crisp   air. What they used to call apple-cider weather.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I was standing at the corner of Seventy-second and Central Park West. I   wasn’t supposed to be standing there. I was supposed to be making my   way up five flights of stairs in a turn-of-the-century brownstone   halfway down Seventy-first, swinging my bag of bagels and whistling a   happy tune. I had fetched the bagels (three poppy, three sesame) from a   place on Columbus that makes them on the premises, but instead of   trotting directly back to Margo’s like a good dog, I had drifted up the   street, lured by the sound of crashing cymbals, and was standing on the   corner dodging a white balloon and watching Mother Goose roll by. Big   pointy hat. Oversize smile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mother Goose, that is. Not me. I was hatless. And I wasn’t smiling.   When I see a gun being drawn in a crowd and it’s not attached to a cop   or to someone I know and trust, generally speaking, I don’t smile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Central Park West runs north–south. The parade runs south. Been that   way since the late twenties. Back then they used to release the big   balloon figures at the end of the parade. There were only a few of   them, so it wasn’t as if the skies of Manhattan suddenly darkened with   a flotilla of giant balloons. You couldn’t do it today. You’d have   scrambled F-16 fighter jets intercepting the balloons faster than you   could blink.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I was standing on the west side of the street, directly in front of the   Dakota, when I saw the gun being drawn. If you’ve seen the movie   Rosemary’s Baby, you’ve seen the Dakota, although they called it   something different in the movie. In the book, too. Richard Nixon tried   to get his suitcase in the door of the Dakota not long after he was   bounced from the White House, but the residents there would have none   of it. It’s that kind of place. When I think of that story, it’s   actually Nixon’s wife I imagine. Poor beleaguered Pat. I imagine her   standing on the sidewalk with her skinny arms crossed over her skinny   chest, one of her dull practical pumps tapping irritably against the   pavement. Well, Mr. I-am-not-a-crook . . . what next?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The gun was a Beretta 92F. That’s nine-millimeter. Eight and a half   inches long, a fraction over two pounds. Magazine capacity of fifteen   bullets. The Beretta is one of the most popular pistols these days with   both police and military shooters. The guy holding this one was   neither. And though it’s a good-looking gun, I didn’t suspect he was   pulling it out simply so he could admire it in the morning sun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I instinctively slapped at my left shoulder. My gun is a simple .38.   Short-barreled snubbie. A simple workhorse. No fancy history. I use it   in my line of work, which is private investigation. Margo calls it my   associate, a little joke she picked up from her father, from when he   was a private investigator and he used to call his gun his associate.   This was before he took on a real associate. A junior partner. Which   was me. Green, eager, fearless and, at the time, extremely pissed off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Nothing came between my slap and my shoulder. My associate was back at   Margo’s, in its holster, up on the dresser. Safety on. Facing the wall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The guy with the Beretta was up on the low stone wall that borders the   park. It was a fluke that I had a clear view of him. There was a gap   between the Mother Goose float and the marching band in front of it, a   high-stepping troupe of teenagers from Berlin, Maryland, and I happened   to be standing where I could see right through the gap. The man was   about five-eight or so. He was wearing a green windbreaker, khaki   pants, sunglasses and a baseball cap. I saw him unzip his windbreaker   and pull the Beretta from his belt, then take a step backward and drop   off the wall, out of sight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The white balloon drifted into my face again. The mother slapped the   boy on his small arm. Very hard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Ezra, for the last time.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I heard the boy begin to cry as I took off running.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As I hit the street, the shooter’s head reappeared above the stone   wall. He planted his elbows on the wall and took aim. His target was   clear. The easiest of all. Mother Goose.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Get down!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I threw my bag of bagels at the float. It hit the float just below the   platform where Mother Goose was standing. I yelled again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Get down! Gun!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I got her attention. The pointed hat dipped my way, a look of   irritation replacing her waving-at-the-crowd smile. I saw the spark   from the Beretta across the street and heard the shot a half-instant   behind. Mother Goose dropped to her knees . . . and all hell broke   loose.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I was still running. A chunky policeman who had been stationed on the   corner not twenty feet from the shooter reacted simultaneously to the   gunshot and to the sight of a loony—me—racing from the curb into the   parade route, yelling and shouting. He started for me. I cried out,   “Gun! Gun! Gun!” and pointed toward the wall, but the cop wasn’t   hearing. He was going for his own gun. Behind him, the shooter rose   calmly to his full height, swung the Beretta to the street level and   fired again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I swerved, crashing into a copper-skinned teenager holding a bass drum.   More shots rang out as the drummer and I tumbled to the street. The   shots continued. The drum head ripped as another of the marching band   troupe—a tiny girl with a shiny alto sax—planted her foot on it. Blood   was pumping onto the white bib of her uniform. Nothing had even   registered yet on her face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I got to my feet. People were scrambling for cover, though here and   there were pockets of onlookers who remained frozen, unable to process.   The chunky policeman was on the ground, not moving. The Mother Goose   float had halted, its Styrofoam wings still flapping mechanically. The   shooter might as well have been standing at a carnival shooting   gallery. He was pointing and shooting, pointing and shooting, pointing   and shooting. To my left, a skinny guy in a Macy’s T-shirt lifted off   the ground with the force of the bullets slamming into his chest. Pop!   Pop! Pop!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Hunched over, I scuttled across the pavement to the policeman. He was   lying on his right side. I knelt down and shoved him onto his back. A   piece of skull the size of a doorknob was gone from the right side of   his head. Ignoring the gore, I unsnapped his holster and pulled out his   service revolver, then ran to the near side of the float, putting it   between me and the shooter. I ran along the float, flipping off the   gun’s safety, and came around the rear with the gun in both hands,   aimed at the stone wall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He was gone. A squirrel was perched on the wall almost exactly where   the shooter had been. Tail high. Head high. Tense and alert. I   suppressed a roaring urge to blow it to bits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I took off running. Holding the pistol down next to my leg, I crossed   the street and started up the paved path that leads into the park. Some   hundred or so feet in from the street, the path opens to a small plaza.   There’s a decorative stone circle embedded in the walkway. The word   imagine is inscribed in mosaic on the circle. The city did this after   John Lennon was murdered in 1980 outside the Dakota, which was where he   lived. Him they let in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Compared to what had just transpired on the street, the plaza was   eerily quiet. As usual, several kids were seated on the periphery of   the imagine circle, strumming guitars and softly singing “All You Need   Is Love.” A girl in an oversize army coat was arranging flowers on the   pavement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The paved path continues past the memorial into the park. Benches and   bushes line the path for another thirty feet, until it comes to a small   clearing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That was where the shooter came from.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He dashed from the clearing onto the path and raced farther into the   park, in the direction of the Bethesda Fountain. I chased. He turned to   look back and saw me charging after him. His arms pumped even harder,   and he reached the small bridge overlooking the fountain plaza. He   veered left and started down the stone steps. As I approached the   bridge, two police cars sped past on the roadway, their sirens   shrieking out of synch. I reached the bridge and started down the   steps.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Mistake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The shooter was already standing at the bottom of the steps. In a wide   stance. Facing me. Aiming the Beretta. Behind him, the wings of the   angel in the fountain stretched majestically against the blue sky. I   dropped as the gun barked, getting off three shots myself before I hit   the steps. One of them took the shooter in the right shoulder, near the   collarbone. The Beretta fell to the bricks as the shooter staggered   backward.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I lunged, knowing the instant I did that it was the wrong thing to do.   I was half running, half falling down the steps. Somewhere in the   tumbling, I lost my grip on the policeman’s service revolver. Below me,   the shooter was hugging his bad arm with his good, taking Frankenstein   steps toward his gun. He’d reach it years before I could.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A body went flying past me down the stone steps. It was a cop. Gun   drawn and shouting. A second cop grabbed me from behind and stopped my   tumbling descent. It was a good strong grip.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Fucking move, you’re fucking dead! Just freeze!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I did. Below me, the other cop reached the wounded shooter. With a   nifty sweep of a foot, he brought the shooter to the ground. Ignoring   the wounded shoulder, the cop jerked the guy’s hands behind him and   cuffed him. I was cuffed, too. I offered no resistance and no   explanations. My cop was a tall, fierce-looking black man. His   heartbeat was probably nearing two hundred blows a minute. Mine sure as   hell was. Way too many engines running way too high. I relaxed into   custody. There would be time to talk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The shooter was dragged back up the steps and shoved into the back of a   patrol car. My cop was joined by another one, his partner. Squatty guy   shaped like a gumdrop. The gumdrop patted me down for weapons, then   shoved me into the back of a second patrol car. I was separated from   the front seat by a cage. The black guy got behind the wheel. Gumdrop   took shotgun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    They did the next part without sirens, which surprised me. It also   surprised me that they didn’t take the eastern exit out of the park, or   the exit to the south. Either would have taken us away from the parade   mess. Instead, the two cars rolled west to Central Park West, where at   least a dozen more police cars and several ambulances were already   crisscrossing the street, lights whirling. The screaming had ceased.   Now it was time for the crying. The crying and the wailing. People   hugging people. People staggering in a daze. Faces registering   disbelief, horror, shock. Gumdrop muttered, “Jesus goddamn Christ,” as   we inched our way forward.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The parade was in tatters. Band instruments were strewn all over the   place. I spotted the Pink Panther far to the south, near Columbus   Circle, hovering precariously above the street. The wind had kicked up,   and the huge figure looked like it was being uppity, bucking and   shifting against its ropes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As we crossed Central Park West at a walker’s pace, I spotted a second   balloon. This one was much smaller. A white balloon. The towheaded kid   was still clutching the string. As the stretcher bearing the boy’s   mother was being slid into the back of an ambulance, one of the EMS   workers gathered the boy up into her arms, and the balloon drifted   lightly against her face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ezra, for the last time . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The little boy released the string.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    2\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      We hit Broadway and went left. I figured I was being taken to the   Midtown North station on Fifty-fourth, a five-minute drive, tops, with   the cherry spinning and the siren clearing the way. But the accessories   remained undeployed, and as we drifted past Fifty-third, I leaned   forward in the seat. “Boys. You missed the turn.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The driver said nothing. Gumdrop half turned in his seat. “Shaddup.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The radio crackled, and a female voice spit out a series of numbers and   letters. Gumdrop glanced curiously at his partner, who nodded tersely.   Gumdrop fished a headset from the glove compartment and put it on,   glancing at me briefly as he leaned forward to plug it into the radio,   which suddenly went silent. I placed both the cops somewhere in their   early thirties, which meant I was the senior man in the car. The driver   looked up in his mirror and saw that I was still leaning forward.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Sit back.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Just so you know,” I said, “I’m the good guy here.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Sit. Back.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I sat back. We crossed to Ninth Avenue and passed a restaurant called   Zen Palate. Margo loves that place. There are three of them in the   city, the closest one to her being the one on Broadway in the   mid-Seventies. She’s dragged me there a couple times. I like half the   stuff I’ve tried there with her. The other half tastes like cardboard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Margo.","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303985828069,"sku":"NP9780345482181","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345482181.jpg?v=1730755980","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/fritz-maloneisbn-9780345482181","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}