Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Apr 2011
464 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From the author of the celebrated and bestselling memoir Blue Blood ("May be the best account ever written of life behind the badge." - Time) comes this highly anticipated fiction debut. In Red on Red, Edward Conlon tells the story of two NYPD detectives, Meehan and Esposito: one damaged and introspective, the other ambitious and unscrupulous. Meehan is compelled by haunting and elusive stories that defy easy resolution, while Esposito is drawn to cases of rough and ordinary combat. A fierce and unlikely friendship develops between them and plays out against a tangle of mysteries: a lonely immigrant who hangs herself in Inwood Hill Park, a serial rapist preying on upper Manhattan, a troubled Catholic schoolgirl who appears in the wrong place with uncanny regularity, and a savage gang war that erupts over a case of mistaken identity.
Red on Red captures the vibrant dynamic of a successful police partnership - the tests of loyalty, the necessary betrayals, the wedding of life and work - and tells an unrelenting and exciting story that captures the grittiness, complexity, ironies, and compromises of life on the job.
"Starred Review. This superb debut novel has all the prerequisites of a best seller. It is authentic, gritty, bleak, fast-paced, and lyrical." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. A first novel sure to make the bestseller lists." - Kirkus Reviews
"Starred Review. The pace may be slower than the average thriller, but this expertly crafted novel will appeal to readers of literary crime masters..." - Publishers Weekly
"A big, daring, psychologically complex story - passionate and poignant, pulsating with authenticity and street smarts yet lyrical and literary - this is the cop novel for everyone who reads books." - Joseph Wambaugh, author of Hollywood Moon
"Red on Red is often brutal and often brutally funny, reaching into the depths of human malice and rising to the level of language that all good literature should achieve." - Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin, winner of the National Book Award
This information about Red on Red was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Edward Conlon is a detective with the New York City Police Department. A graduate of Harvard, he has published articles in The New Yorker and Harper’s and his work has been included in The Best American Essays. He is the author of a memoir, Blue Blood, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, A New York Times Notable Book, and a New York Times bestseller.
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