Retired New York City detective Brian McKenna is living the good life with his wife, Angelita, in Florida. The murder of a NYC rookie cop, the son of a good friend of McKenna's, draws him back to the Big Apple. But the murder is only the first step in a complex plan to hold the city hostage. The trap has been masterminded by Felipe, a leader in the Peruvian Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), and organization with which McKenna has had previous dealings. For much of the story, McKenna plays Wile E. Coyote to Felipe's Roadrunner; he gets knocked down, shot, blown up--and still keeps going. While the plot ranges from Costa Rica to Peru, Texas to Brighton Beach, N.Y., the tension escalates as each piece of Felipe's terrorist scheme falls into place. Mahoney's detailed, knowledgeable follow-up to Detective First Grade moves at a city-brisk pace, delivering crisp and stylish entertainment.

Dan Mahoney, a retired New York Police Department captain, has found a cure-fire way of stretching his pension. With Edge of the City, Mahoney proves that you can write an intelligent action thriller that makes sense.

Detective First Grade Brian McKenna, recovering from a near fatal encounter with Peru's Shining Path terrorists, is retired and living under an assumed name in Florida with his wife, Angelita. But when the son of his friend, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Brunette, is shot during a robbery, McKenna returns to New York for the funeral. Indications that the Peruvian terrorists may have staged the robbery as part of a plan to shut down New York City lead to McKenna heading up the special squad to investigate the killing.

The terrorists, led by the charismatic Felipe, seize a key bridge and park a truckload of dynamite on it, then hijack two Staten Island ferries that they threaten to blow up with 500 hostages aboard unless a long list of demands are met, including millions of dollars in ransom. It is McKenna's job to negotiate with Felipe while uncovering the full scope of the elaborate plot that involved months of planning, dozens of killings, elaborate disguises and deceptions.

There are good scenes between McKenna and Felipe, who end up having more than a grudging respect for each other, and Mahoney outlines the complex Peruvian political situation without turning Edge of the City into a dry, political treatsie.

Mahoney scores because he has developed characters that are far more complex and interesting than the lineup usually found in police thrillers where the death toll almost matches the number of pages.

Memo to Bruce Willis: Here's your next Die Hard. This second police procedural from a former NYPD captain has everything you--and readers in search of some summer thrills--are looking for. There's a tough, wise-cracking detective whose name you only have to change from McKenna to McLane; his ninja-like sidekick; smooth terrorist adversaries; and enough action to send readers reaching for the Gatorade.

Better still, Edge of the City is a cleverly plotted cat-and-mouse tango that pits McKenna against Peruvian-based Shining Path guerrillas. As McKenna races the clock to save the city, Mahoney captures every insider element of the police process. If only his wife, Yvette (still walking the beat in Manhattan), could get him to make his female characters more convincing.

Retired NYPD detective Brian McKenna flies back from Florida with wife Angelita to attend the funeral of his best friend's son, and the terrorist scum who have killed the son have planted a bomb in the hearse. Author Dan Mahoney, himself a retired NYPD detective, provides as many thrill as the new Bruce Willis flick, and with a lot more reality.

How do you get onto Manhattan Island? Do you use the Holland Tunnel, the George Washington Bridge, or maybe the Williamsburgh Bridge? Well, it doesn't matter. After you've read Dan Mahoney's explosive new crime novel, you'll never again feel comfortable using any of them.

A terrorist group, the Sandinista-trained Sendero, plans to violently shut down New York City for five days. How? You guessed it--blow the bridges and tunnels. Why? South American politics and mucho dinero. But, of course, the terrorists have overlooked one thing--the resolve of our hero, retired NYPD detective Brian McKenna.

McKenna, because of his career-ending last case, has been living in Florida under an assumed name. He returns to the Big Apple after the Police Commissioner's son is killed in a shoot-out in the 17th Precinct, the Gold Coast. Once in New York, McKenna finds himself trapped in a deadly battle. It's McKenna and the NYPD versus Felipe and Elena, two of the world's most feared terrorists, and their cadre of international assassins.

Fans of this genre--and there are many--will enjoy the protagonist's extraordinary and unnerving struggle to squash the icons of world terrorism. McKenna, as is his wont, breaks all the rules along the way in pursuit of his nefarious adversaries. There's even a twisted kind of love interest there for McKenna.

Mahoney, himself a retired NYPD detective, is an excellent storyteller. What elevates his writing from the ordinary is his steady pace, sly humor, and investigative detail.

Mahoney's first book, Detective First Grade, established him as a special talent. Edge of the City places him on the cutting edge of detective fiction.

Highly recommended.

Try Dan Mahoney's new Edge of the City, in which the Peruvian revolutionary group Shining Path decide to finance their revolution by holding the city of New York hostage.

Now here's a big-city police story with a difference; it's not just the usual, deadly "mean streets." The reader will find it difficult to put down before the final page.

Local readers will find it even more interesting because the retired detective who is the main character lives on Fort Myers Beach. The social life he describes can only exist in a condo, however, and doesn't resemble Beach life as this reader knows it.

After reading "Edge..." it's predecessor book was a must-read that had slipped by me when published.

Detective First Grade presents the Shining Path revolutionaries in New York for their first fund-raising activities. It does, however, make this reader understand the reason for the sentence in the acknowledgments of "Edge..." that his friend "housed and entertained me while I did the Fort Myers Beach research."

Both books are wonderful reading. They overcame even this reader's prejudice against urban police books. Neither one is a one-evening pleasure. Even if it's difficult (and believe me, it was) the reader will just have to put the book down sometime to eat and sleep.