![]() Although he left behind his license to practice law with his high salary and prestige, he took his skill set with him and parlayed it into a marginally successful career as a foreclosure profiteer. His fall from grace was abrupt and dramatic. He is also a former attorney who was once on the fast track to success with a white-shoe Manhattan law firm. ![]() Ted is a native New Yorker who has a penchant for home games, which he attends as frequently as possible, occasionally in the company of his ex-wife. Readers are introduced to Ted Molloy, who is almost instantly memorable and sympathetic. ![]() It has been several years since Michael Sears’ last novel, so I was thrilled to sink my teeth into his new release, TOWER OF BABEL. The characters have layer upon layer of secrets, motives, and surprises. I received a review copy of “Tower of Babel” from Michael Sears and Soho Crime. One question remains was it love or obsession if you murdered someone? Did it matter? Lines are crossed that should never have been approached. “Tower of Babel” starts slowly with the search for an elderly land owner and picks up momentum until the fast, furious, and tragic end. No one gets murdered over surplus money, and yet somehow someone did. He normally tracks down people who are owed extra money from real estate sales and takes a cut for helping them get the cash. Ted Molloy is a fixer, a finder he is resourceful, impulsive, and loves baseball. The cost to empty a building for redevelopment is more than just money it can also be measured by the lives of people who are disrupted, shattered, and left homeless. New construction with buildings stretching upward into the dark grey sky seems to be planned in every neighborhood. It is a city in transition with new development threatening to tear the community apart. Sears drops readers into the middle of Queens, an ethnically and culturally diverse part of New York City. What follows is a story of scheming, political corruption, money laundering, defrauding the elderly, and just bad karma. “Tower of Babel” opens with a confession if Ted had known Richie would be dead in three days perhaps he would have tried harder to like him. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. I would be willing to read more by this author. The ending was also realistic, unfortunately. However, the plot felt realistic and held my interest. Ted figures out who the bad guys are and what their scheme is pretty early in this book, so there was a little too much going around in circles that padded the length of the book. ![]() The author has a good feel for it, as well as for the multi-national, multi-ethnic environment of the borough of Queens. Reluctantly, Ted gets pulled into a corrupt circle of city politicians, real estate developers, lawyers, Russian money launderers and an immense Greek thug who is following his own agenda.īasically, it’s business as usual for the real estate business in New York. His associate Richie Rubiano is murdered shortly after coming to Ted with a deal that has a suspiciously large amount of excess cash. His law license has lapsed, but he makes a decent living glomming on to excess cash in real estate foreclosures. Ted Malloy’s career went into a downward trajectory when he lost his job at his ex-father-in law’s law firm. His quest for the truth will take him all over Queens, plunging him into the machinations of greedy developers, mobsters, enraged activists, old litigator foes and old-school New York City operators. With Richie’s widow on his back and shadows of the past popping up at every turn, Ted realizes he’s gotten himself embroiled in a murder investigation. It’s a grubby business, but a safe one-until Ted’s case sourcer, a mostly reformed small-time conman named Richie Rubiano, turns up murdered shortly after tipping Ted off to an improbably lucrative lead. Ted was once a high-powered Manhattan lawyer, but after a spectacular fall from grace, he has found himself back on his home turf, scraping by as a foreclosure profiteer. Native son Ted Malloy knows these streets like the back of his hand. Queens, New York-the most diverse place on earth. Shamus Award–winning author Michael Sears brings Queens, New York, to literary life in this crime series debut featuring a somewhat seedy lawyer with a heart of gold (or at least gold plate).
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