Hell Fire in Brick City

When the very ground catches fire next to a New Jersey river, world-weary private dick Frank Soldi is drawn into a search for the culprit, which leads him unwillingly into a sordid world of criminals, politicians, and money. In this world, he meets Barbara Collingswood, an intelligent European-educated young woman who, unfortunately, happens to be already married—to one of the dangerous characters that populate this story. When it seems to him she never met a dick she didn’t like, and has an appetite to match, things go off the rails for him. In a world where lies are the norm and truth an orphan, he finds himself in a moral morass. After the body of one of his assistants is fished out of a river, he decides to fight fire with fire. This is not as easy as he thinks, since one of his underworld nonfriends is up to his neck in the ground fire, caused by one of his businesses, the illegal disposal of industrial chemicals. Not always clear who the psychopaths are and which characters are not, this noir novel blurs the line between morality and amorality, in which we all live.

-- Kevin Romano