A slow start dogs this second mystery featuring Brooklyn homicide detective Jack Leightner. But as readers acclimate to the subdued vibe of a wintry city recovering from the raw shock of 9/11, Cohen begins to display a cool, unfussy mastery of interweaving subplots in a way that feels a lot like real life. Leightner is nearly recovered from the gunshot wound he suffered in Red Hook (2001), but it still haunts him as he struggles to get his head back in the game while investigating several homicides especially the death of a boy found floating near a pier in a handmade coffin. The detective also repeatedly fails to find the right time to present his girlfriend with an engagement ring even as he wonders whether he's willing to have children with her. Throw in a lazy partner who might be harboring unsavory secrets, and you have the makings of a slow-boil gut-churner. And although the plot finishes strong, the discussion Leightner has with a British-expat Buddhist nun about attachment emerges as the book's surprising high point.--Sennett, Frank Copyright 2007 Booklist

A grim child murder, a crooked partner, a skittish fiance: Detective Jack Leightner (Red Hook, 2001) is getting too old for this. While two fisherman are pulling a small coffin out of the water in Red Hook, veteran Brooklyn homicide detective Leightner steels himself to propose to his girlfriend Michelle over a romantic dinner. As Michelle inadvertently eats the chocolate mousse that contains her hidden engagement ring, Jack stays mum. The found coffin, meanwhile, contains the body of a young boy, with no identification except the initials G.I. written on his forehead. Jack catches the case and Tommy Balfa, a new partner. Other easily solved murders demand Jack's attention, but the G.I. case remains a priority. You wouldn't know it, though, by Balfa's behavior. He seems secretive and disinterested to the point of laziness. Nevertheless, they find another victim, a security guard, with the same G.I. message. One day Jack tails Balfa and catches him red-handed with a trunk full of money. He also tracks down the married Balfa's girlfriend, young nurse Maureen Duffy, who may not be as innocent as she seems. When, after more aborted attempts, Jack works up the nerve to propose to Michelle again, she cries, confesses that she's been seeing somebody else and runs away. Cohen's second procedural believably captures the rhythms and interactions of a busy urban precinct. Everyman Jack, struggling to do the right thing, merits devotion. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Detective Jack Leightner helps a conspicuously apathetic partner decode the message written on the head of a beached corpse in this sequel to Red Hook. Cohen lives in Brooklyn. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Death and recovery consume Det. Jack Leightner in his second appearance and validate the praise Cohen received for Red Hook (2001). Winter is settling over New York harbor and a small coffin containing the body of a boy floats off a Red Hook pier. The box was assembled without nails and the corpse treated carefully. But by whom? Jack is temporarily assigned to his old Brooklyn neighborhood, once the hub of a thriving shipping industry, now decrepit but on the brink of gentrification. Tommy Balfa, the other officer on the case, leaves Jack alone except for favors he can call in. Oddly, Jack welcomes this challenge as a distraction from personal problems such as his repeated failure to propose to his magnificent girlfriend, even though working in Red Hook brings up his guilt over his brother's death when they were kids on the streets. Cohen offers not just a mystery but a satisfying elegy for vanished ways of life. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved