CENTRAL PARK WEST

In Comey's first novel in a planned series, the prosecution of a powerful mob figure is upended by a revelation of ties between the Mafia and the recently murdered ex-governor of New York.

The mob ties come as a shock to the prosecutor, Nora Carleton, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Comey’s old haunts). She was poised to put away the mobster known as The Nose for good—and, in another ongoing case, nail the ex-wife of the creepy former governor for his murder. With the possibility that the murder was committed by a member of the Gambino crime family—a hit woman impersonating the ex-wife, Kyra Burke—a legal free-for-all breaks out. At one point, there's a chance that the Manhattan district attorney will prosecute Kyra while Nora prosecutes someone else for the same murder. Drawing on his experience as a mob prosecutor, Comey is comfortable with the technicalities and unspoken truths of a high-level case, including the battles among the Department of Justice and the Manhattan DA and the FBI and the NYPD. He's a bit too eager to show off all he knows: For all the lively tidbits in the book, including the possibility of digitally tracking a suspect through her Starbucks orders, there are as many drops of useless information, such as state criminal trials not happening “where the movie-going public thought they did.” Readers of legal thrillers know more than he gives them credit for. Ultimately, Comey’s first crack at fiction is more efficient than exciting. Perhaps the juice it’s missing might have come, in the post–Andrew Cuomo era, from a closer examination of the book's disgraced ex-governor.

A capable but predictable fiction debut by the former FBI chief.