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Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
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Summary
Author Notes
Born in 1933, William J. Caunitz used his thirty years of New York City police department experience for background in writing numerous novels depicting police corruption. In 1985, Caunitz published his first literary work, One Police Plaza, which gave readers a behind-the-scenes look at the way real cops behave. The book quickly became a New York Times bestseller.
After the success of his first novel, Caunitz continued to write whodunit books focusing on the police force. From 1987 to 1993, Caunitz published Suspects, Black Sand, Exceptional Clearance, and Cleopatra Gold. His sixth and final novel, titled Pigtown, published in 1995, was considered by critics to be his best. The book chronicles the investigation of a mob hit that puts lead detective Matthew Stuart and his fellow cops in mortal danger.
Caunitz, who divided his time between New York City and a little town in Mexico, died in 1996 at the age of 63.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews 2
Publisher's Weekly Review
The gritty realism of Caunitz's new novel (after Cleopatra Gold), as in his earlier ones, reflects the more than two decades he spent with the NYPD. Caunitz's cops sound and act like the real thing, and his villains, while occasionally over the top, are fetchingly sinister (only the extravagant, mostly illicit sex here comes off as more fantasy than reportage). The murder of small-time hood Beansy Rutolo in the Brooklyn neighborhood dubbed ``Pigtown'' has a special significance for Lieutenant Matthew Stuart: the deceased's unexpected testimony once saved Matt's father from being kicked off the job for political reasons. Now the effort to track down Beansy's killers is revealing corruption that reaches deep into the Department-and goes back years. Matt is struggling with assorted personal demons too-the tragedy that ended his marriage; his secret relationship with a superior officer known as the ``Ice Maiden''; and an attempt to frame him for dereliction of duty. Caunitz's prose is flat-footed, weighed down with mundane detail, and his theme of ancient, festering corruption was old hat when Teddy Roosevelt was the city's police commissioner. Still, his feel for cops and cons matches anyone's, as evidenced once again by this flawed but still engaging novel, a police blotter come to life. Author tour. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In his fifth novel, best-selling author and former NYPD detective Caunitz has produced his most compelling work to date. Matthew Stuart is a detective lieutenant in the Pigtown district of Brooklyn, so named due to the many pig farms that existed there before World War II. What appears to be a Mob matter--the murder of Beansy Rutolo--is complicated because Beansy was known to have sources in the department. Stuart draws the Rutolo hit and refuses to let it go, despite severe internal pressure. He has to call in all his chits, from Jamaican drug lords to the few cops he can trust and, finally, to his lover, also an officer. It's the latter that hurts the most since by gaining his lover's assistance, he risks making their relationship public, a step she's hesitant to take. Stuart ultimately reveals a multilayered web of corruption stretching back to the Serpico hearings and reaching into the highest levels of the department. A tight, carefully plotted thriller with rich, memorable characters. --Wes Lukowsky
