From

Another "Who killed JFK" book? Tanenbaum--former chief of the New York City District Attorney's Homicide Bureau and deputy chief counsel to the late-'70s House Select Committee on Assassinations--is more qualified to speculate, or fictionalize, than most. In this novel, it's Butch Karp who goes to work for the Select Committee, bringing along investigator Clay Fulton and attorney V. T. Newbury. Karp's wife, Marlene Ciampi, and toddler daughter, Lucy, stay in New York, but when the slimy district attorney throws a major pass, Marlene heads south. Oppressed by inactivity as a Washington "wife of," she volunteers to organize the evidence a Select Committee member has gathered to clear his late father of the spying allegations that forced him out of government after World War II. Inevitably, the two investigations intersect, and all the usual suspects--Mafia capos and soldiers, past and present CIA agents and assets, past and present Russian spies, and Lee Harvey Oswald--dance once more across the stage. Tanenbaum's edgy tone is a good fit for the unsettling questions the American people may never resolve about that sunny afternoon in Dallas. Expect requests. Mary Carroll

Review

“With Corruption of Blood, Tanenbaum is now the one to beat.” —_Publishers Weekly_

“Legal suspense like no one else—smart, fast-paced, Tanenbaum’s best yet.” —F. Lee Bailey

SUMMARY:
Acclaimed "New York Times" bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum ratchets up the suspense with an authentic and morally complex mystery set deep inside the New York City police department. When a black man is shot multiple times in the back on the streets of New York by an NYPD golden boy, chaos erupts throughout the city. And in an election year -- a year of secret handshakes and politically motivated favors -- no one feels the pressure more than the men and women who vow to protect and to serve. For Butch Karp, chief assistant district attorney for New York County, bullet holes aren't the only holes in this volatile case, nor in a second shocking puzzle... A slow-witted young man faces the death penalty for murdering a Jewish diamond merchant. Karp is quickly learning that politics mean a lot more than justice when it becomes apparent certain higher-ups would rather whitewash the truth than lose the Jewish vote. Add a serial killer who is murdering the homeless to Karp's daily grind, and it's clear he is surrounded by high-profile time bombs that are promising to blow the city to its core. To make matters worse, Karp's wife, Marlene Ciampi, has become independently wealthy thanks to the Internet stock boom and has decided to enjoy her newly acquired fortune through manic shopping sprees and free-flowing alcohol. Plus, his daughter, Lucy, is skipping school to feed the homeless not far from where the slasher stalks his prey. Desperate to stop the violence before it touches his family, Karp must wade through a system of corruption and conspiracy that threatens to silence his pursuit of the truth...forever.

SUMMARY:
Acclaimed "New York Times" bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum ratchets up the suspense with an authentic and morally complex mystery set deep inside the New York City police department. When a black man is shot multiple times in the back on the streets of New York by an NYPD golden boy, chaos erupts throughout the city. And in an election year -- a year of secret handshakes and politically motivated favors -- no one feels the pressure more than the men and women who vow to protect and to serve. For Butch Karp, chief assistant district attorney for New York County, bullet holes aren't the only holes in this volatile case, nor in a second shocking puzzle... A slow-witted young man faces the death penalty for murdering a Jewish diamond merchant. Karp is quickly learning that politics mean a lot more than justice when it becomes apparent certain higher-ups would rather whitewash the truth than lose the Jewish vote. Add a serial killer who is murdering the homeless to Karp's daily grind, and it's clear he is surrounded by high-profile time bombs that are promising to blow the city to its core. To make matters worse, Karp's wife, Marlene Ciampi, has become independently wealthy thanks to the Internet stock boom and has decided to enjoy her newly acquired fortune through manic shopping sprees and free-flowing alcohol. Plus, his daughter, Lucy, is skipping school to feed the homeless not far from where the slasher stalks his prey. Desperate to stop the violence before it touches his family, Karp must wade through a system of corruption and conspiracy that threatens to silence his pursuit of the truth...forever.

Amazon.com Review

The dynamic crime-solving duo of Butch Karp and his feisty wife, Marlene Ciampi, is back, and this time they have an extra set of brains: their 7-year-old daughter, Lucy. Falsely Accused is

Falsely Accused is more than just a suspenseful thriller--it is a fascinating exploration of legal and courtroom procedures, recounted in scrupulous detail. Fans of Butch and Marlene (and Lucy!) will not be disappointed.

From Publishers Weekly

Followers of Tanenbaum's intelligent, 1970s-set series (Corruption of Blood, etc.) featuring married lawyers Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi will find that the author's punchy style perfectly suits his latest three-ring crime spectacle. After years on New York City payrolls, both attorneys have quit for private work?Karp for a top firm and Marlene, after keeping house for a while, to start a detective agency with her burnt-out ex-cop pal Harry Bello. For his first case, Karp represents Manhattan's Chief Medical Examiner as he sues to get his job back plus damages after he has been fired by the mayor working in tandem with Karp's old nemesis, D.A. Sanford Bloom. Marlene finds her new challenge in the schoolyard where her seven-year-old daughter, Lucy, plays. When a young mother ask Marlene's help in stopping a stalker, Marlene's sleuthing leads her to a Lower East Side women's shelter where Lucy befriends two traumatized children and insists that her mother help them. The plot curve, unsurprisingly to those who know the series, is tossed by regal but ever-difficult journalist Ariadne Stupenagel, Marlene's pushy college buddy, who's digging into the suspicious suicides?while in police custody?of three gypsy cabbies. What she unearths is improbably connected to both Marlene's and Karp's cases. The links among these three very dissimilar narrative threads strains credulity, but Tanenbaum's talent is large, and so are his characters. These assets, along with a shot of genuine compassion for the troubles of children, enable him to just pull this one off. If readers won't quite believe the shockingly unconventional resolution, they'll still be affected by it, leaving them eager to know where this heroic family of crimefighters goes from here.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

At the center of Tanenbaum's scattershot, complicated 17th entry in his Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi series (_Hoax_, etc_.)_ is a decade-old rape perpetrated by four young men beneath the Coney Island Pier. The so-called Coney Island Four were eventually caught and sent to prison, but an oily, race-baiting lawyer, Hugh Louis, has managed to free them and is now filing a $250 million lawsuit against the city of New York. Karp, Manhattan's district attorney, smells corrupt cooperation between Brooklyn's political establishment and the lawyer, and at the request of the mayor, he steps in to defend the city. Though Tanenbaum effectively brings readers inside the world of crime, politics and the law, he bloats the thriller with distracting subplots. In a boilerplate Tanenbaum twist, a terrorist cell led by a brutal Iraqi takes over an abandoned subway tunnel and takes a member of Karp's family hostage as part of its plan to blow up Times Square on New Year's Eve. Meanwhile, Karp's wife, Ciampi, works to exonerate a college professor accused of rape at the same time she pitches in on the Coney Island Four case. It's too bad Tanenbaum has overstuffed his latest thriller: somewhere beneath the layers of fat there's a svelte, snappy story. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From

Courtroom maneuvering (as well as the detective work behind it) and family relationships have always been hallmarks of Tanenbaum's Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi series. Thanks mostly to Marlene, the series has also included its share of heroics, moral pondering, and violence-laced action. This time, however, the brutality seems gratuitous, and the plot turns on coincidence. As usual, several cases are entwined: Karp, now acting district attorney, and his family and friends unmask legal, law-enforcement, and moral corruption as they separately and together face a terrorist threat, marshal a defense against four young black men claiming they were wrongly convicted, and review a rape charge brought by a student against her professor. Unfortunately, the courtroom scenes yield few surprises, and some of the out-of-court action scenes (especially when Marlene, a sharpshooter cowboy, a Native American cop, and a Vietnamese gang boss turn themselves into commandos for a face-off with the terrorists) tip over into the ridiculous. That said, it's tough not to root for characters you've grown to know and like, even if they aren't at their best. Tanenbaum sets up the next installment on the last page of this one; let's hope it's more thoughtfully conceived. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Publishers Weekly

Tanenbaum--currently a candidate for Los Angeles D.A.--cooks up a shocking and credible addition to his N.Y.C.-based Butch Karp crime series. More than a million copies of Tanenbaum's books are in print, and his next, Reversible Error , will be a Dutton April release. Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This cynical, fast-moving novel, the third in the Butch Karp series, concerns the workings of the judicial system in the Big City. The neat plot combines Satanism, pedophilia, Mafiosi, good-looking cops, corrupt judges, sociopaths, a pregnant one-eyed assistant district attorney who roller skates, and a love story, into something special. Tanenbaum, coauthor of two nonfiction crime books as well as De praved Indifference ( LJ 7/89) and No Lesser Plea (Watts, 1987), is also a former assistant district attorney and chief of homicide. As timely as tomorrow's nightly news, but not for the squeamish.
- Lynn Thompson, Ozark Regional Lib., Ironton, Mo.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Amazon.com Review

Robert K. Tanenbaum spent the first part of his career as an assistant district attorney in New York City's homicide bureau, and he has been artfully recapturing that period in his terrific books about D.A. Butch Karp and his wife, private detective Marlene Ciampi. "He still had his hair at thirty-seven, and he kept it shorter than was fashionable then, at the start of the eighties," Tanenbaum writes of Butch at the start of Irresistible Impulse. It is one of the few places in the book where the exact time is spelled out; otherwise, Tanenbaum relies on an ambiance of attitudes and characters to root the action in its period. A tough Vietnamese immigrant who goes to work for Marlene's new detective agency is a fascinating creation, and the two main stories--Karp's difficulties with a high-profile case that could stir up racial strife, and Marlene's attempts to protect a prominent musician from a stalker--are perfectly set and brilliantly executed. Other books in this fine series available in paperback include

From Library Journal

Legal eagles Butch Carp and Marlene Ciampi, fresh from their courtroom adventure in the best-selling Falsely Accused, here find their jobs and lives threatened.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

An Armenian radical is accused of murdering a Turkish diplomat as a New York City homicide chief and his wife try to find the real culprits.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

During World War I, 1.5 million Armenians were annihilated by the Turks. Turkey has never acknowledged this genocide, and history lightly dances around it. Herein lies the premise of Justice Denied. The tale begins with the assassination of a Turkish diplomat-apparently committed by Armenian terrorists-and the prompt arrest of a suspect. Enter Butch Karp, assistant district attorney and head of the homicide bureau. Karp and wife Marlene, also an assistant D.A., make a most dynamic duo. Among the individual threads: she goes to a reception and receives a lecture on art theft; he discovers a million dollars in a safe deposit box; he gets a lesson on Eastern European history and the buying and selling of national treasures. These threads are tightly woven together into a highly satisfying tale ultimately related to the novel's opening events. Larger public libraries may want more than one copy.
--Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.