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People write unfinished symphonies, so why shouldn't Vincent Patrickwrite an unfinished thriller? The author of such previous pleasures as The Pope of Greenwich Village and Family Business (remember Sean Connery and Dustin Hoffman as father and son in the film version?) leaves enough loose ends hanging in his latest book to cover the walls of what will certainly be a sequel. But if you can forget about closure, what's here is definitely first rate.

It begins when Fidel Castro sends a personal message to the current president (never named, but described as having a shrewd wife who herds him like a Border collie), threatening to turn loose a nasty new airborne virus unless the United States gives him some respect. A slick CIA director comes up with a scheme to snatch the Cuban doctor delivering the virus, making it look like a hostage-taking during a botched hotel robbery. He recruits a couple of ex-Agency types, including one who is secretly (he thinks) having it off with the director's daughter. Also in on the scheme is a shrewd ex-cop, who signs on an ace thief for the robbery part but doesn't tell him about the Cuban virus or the CIA.

Of course, everything that could possibly go wrong promptly does, and the Russian and Italian mafias get involved, as well as a Chinese gang. Even if at the end nobody's fate is really resolved, you'll certainly have a good time getting there. --Dick AdlerBook Description
An ex-New York City cop. An easygoing jewel thief. They may be an odd-couple team but they have something in common: they're both caught in the middle of an illegal CIA smoke screen to stop a Cuban doctor from unleashing a devastating virus on U.S. soil....

"A gritty thriller that just won't let go."-- Richard Price, author of Clockers

"A page-turner."-- Vanity Fair

"Razor-sharp...a terrific thriller."-- Chicago Tribune

"A narrative that satisfies on all sorts of levels."-- New York Times Book Review

"Will keep you guessing to the very end."-- Nicholas Pileggi, bestselling author of Wiseguys and Casino

"The two central characters...are brilliantly drawn."-- New York Daily News

"A refreshingly taut, intelligent work of suspense."-- Publishers Weekly ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Isn't it WAY past time that Vincent Patrick wrote
another book?His novels are some of the best I've ever read and though his writing is years between works, I eagerly await the next one.So when is the next one coming already?

Unconventional thriller
The premise behind this book is very good. Capture a Cuban terrorist who arrives in the US, but make it look like something else. The "something else" becomes a hotel robbery that goes bad and the Cuban winds up being taken as a hostage. However, the hotel heist really does go bad and the Cuban escapes, along with ten million dollars in diamonds. Teddy Tedesco, ex-New York cop, must find the terrorist before he releases a deadly air-borne virus at a political convention in New York City.

As I said, the premise and the plot are quite good and convoluted. Just when you think you have the whole thing figured out Mr. Patrick throws another monkey wrench into the deal and you're off in another direction. However, I had a hard time finishing this book. Mr.Patrick is a very low-key writer and at times the writing fails to generate the excitement the plot calls for. It's not a bad book, far from it, but it didn't grip me with the same intensity of say a James Lee Burke novel.

Outstanding
Top notch thriller, mystery. It is very realistic and true to its subject matter. One mistake is on page 223 at the top, where it refers to taking a Glock pistol off safety.Glocks have no safety in the conventional sense,and there is nothing to take off.The only safety is the unique trigger,which is an automatic safety of sorts. This is my first time to read a bookby Mr. Patrick, and it will not be my last.

Good read, but should have been edited better!
I question Mr. Patrick's research not to mention his editors. There is nothing worse than reading along at a fast clip and hitting a speed bump, such as finding a sentence where a young Italian boy is saying goodnight tohis elderly Italian neighbor by saying "Buena notte"A seriousliterary speed bump, especially for something as basic as 'goodnight'! AND...A Spanish-speaking man who received a childhood nickname because hewas skinny would probably not call himself 'Flocko'.Flaco, maybe, butFlocko? I doubt it.And an Italian-speaking bank robber, who the plotreveals learned Spanish in prison, overhears a conversation in Spanishwhere someone says that the 'cosas' are in upstate New York. He recountsthe conversation to his partner, saying he wasn't sure what the word'cosas' meant. Well , if he knew some Spanish, as we were told a fewchapters earlier, he would have no problem with this word. And as if thatisn't ridiculous enough, cosas means the same thing in Italian as it doesin Spanish. Apparently somebody was asleep on the job when this was in theedit stages. I found Smoke Screen to be entertaining, for the most part,although I do agree with one of the other customer reviews which complainsabout tangents in the plot, such as the Asian gang and the 'cosa nostra'and Russian mob stuff which is never really developed. It is a fun read.But not stellar.

Thrilling, frightening, but also a bit overdone
Biological warfare here in the US? It's a distinct possibility, and this novel plays upon that fear with plausible characters and a thrill-a-minute story line. Like any good book, this one will run you through a gamut of emotions. The ending is particularly satisfying, too. Why not 5 stars?Because unnecessary elements (the Chinese mafia, stake-out agents, andothers) are introduced and are truly unnecessary to the story line. Still,highly recommended. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Vincent (Archibald Patrick) Cronin, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thomson Gale. The length of the entry is 840 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Book Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Vincent Patrick, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1494 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Customer Reviews (1)

Good, but not as good as "The Pope of Greenwich Village"
I read and really enjoyed "TPoGV", so I bought this book.It is not nearly as well crafted, and drags in a few places.Still, I enjoyed the book. ... Read more

Book Description
Elegiac Muses is the first general introduction to the poetry, culture, and politics of the romantic poetess in Europe. Between 1820 and 1840, a sisterhood of artists throughout Europe, including Felicia Hemans and Letitia Landon in England, Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Delphine Gay, and Amable Tastu in France, and Evdokia Rostopchina and Karolina Pavlova in Russia, produced gendered, sentimental poetry, which shared a common political aspiration. Following in the footsteps of Germaine de Stael (and her heroine Corinne, 1807), these women wrote to foster sympathy and facilitate the development of a liberal, internationalist culture, identifying with writers from other countries, imagining their "civilizing mission" as collective and universal.

From a new, comparative perspective, Patrick Vincent nimbly restores the unjustly debased image of the romantic poetess in this outstanding investigation of complex nineteenth-century intersections between femininity and writing, public and political aspirations, and literary commodification. Among the book's noteworthy achievements is its establishment of the romantic poetess as an important figure in the emergence of the modern liberal state. ... Read more

Product Description
(K-2)Here`s your chance to really bring Donna`s songs alive in your classroom. This fun, idea-packed book provides you with numerous ideas and extension activities Donna has used in her classroom or has described in her extremely popular, workshop presentations. (K-2) 96 pp. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Decent book; gets too academic in places
Living 40 minutes from Niagara Falls for the past 12 years, I was anxious to read more about the history of the Falls, and McGreevy's "Imagining Niagara" was my choice.Overall, it's a decent book and covers a great breadth of topics revolving around how the meaning of Niagara has changed over time (the "Editors Reviews" are very good in describing this more).

It did, however, get a bit too in-depth and academic multiple times for an average, casual reader.I would not immediately recommend this as a first book for someone wanting to learn about Niagara Falls.

That said, some parts were completely enthralling.It went into very well-written discussions and explanations on topics of general interest to anyone.The best way to summarize this (and this occurred to me over and over as I read this book) is that, if you paid good money to hire a tour guide to take you around the Falls, you would want your tour guide to have read this book.A tour guide with this kind of insight would provide a wonderful, deeply-felt, lasting impression of your visit, far beyond the already immense feelings the common visitor to the Falls takes away.

In summary, if you're planning to visit to Falls and want to take away an extraordinary appreciation of the Falls, read this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

the single funniestnovel I have ever read
under-appreciated, probably because of the well-known but mediocre film version.Crammed from start to finish with page after page of the funniest bar business, police, and petty crime anecdotes everassembled

Pope Charlie?
I really like this book. I've re-read it several times because it is the type of story that takes you away from the problems of Life for a while.Charlie Moran is one those characters who is a study in contradictions.He wants to do what's right but gets talked into doing wrong; wants to dump the girl (Diane) but is forced toward a commitment which ultimately blows up in his face.Hard Luck and Charlie are no strangers, mainly because Hard Luck is personified as his cousin Paulie.I saw the movie to this book and it comes pretty close to the book.The casting was pretty accurate to the characters I pictured while reading the book.

Part love-story, part New York hustlers, part Mafia...well detailed characters and a few good laughs.Read this one, you will enjoy it.

A classic, friendly, re-readable novel -- the best kind.
I stumbled onto this book in 1991, and I can't count how many times I've re-read it.The writing style is "open", uncluttered by stylistic fancy, so you see right through to the characters.You don't read this book . . . you watch and listen the people and events.It's so smooth and strong, I have always just assumed it was a successful, critically-acclaimed book.

Never had any desire to see the movie, because this book (these people, these events) are so colorful and alive!I would think a film could only subtract from the story.You feel Charlie's frustration, without becoming claustrophic on the pages.You get properly irritated with Paulie, without wishing the author had used him less.Indeed, you come to enjoy every character -- corrupt and otherwise.

As you near the end, you start to feel like these are friends or acquaintances.Always a disappointment to finish the book, and though the end is "fair", not a "cheat", one feels there might be room for a sequel of sorts.

Okay, so it's not gonna challenge your paradigm of preconcieved non-subversive regendered sub-analytical postgrocery non-consciousness . . . but every reader deserves some FUN, right?

Not su gd
Not vry gd bk bcs it about criminol

THE FASTEST BOOK I EVER READ
New York mob books are a dime a dozen but that doesn't mean they ain't fun. I'm telling you, man, that this is the funnest book you could hope to read in your lifetime. No farting around with belletristic descriptions, nolong diatribes on "The Code of La Cosa Nostra"...just good-timelowlife fun. Regular shmucks trying to get a break for chrissakes. Paulieis absolutely adorable with his ineptitude and the villain "BedBug" Grant is a fearsome clown. Super book. ... Read more