I won this book on early readers, which is a great program.

I had not read any of the previous books in this series, and I had absolutely no problem following the storyline. I was very interested in the main characters and got caught up in their concerns, history and ultimately, their fates.

I recommend this book without reservation.

It is a police procedural set in NY, a place very foreign to me.
I printed off maps to follow the action.

I am looking forward to starting this series in the beginning and seeing how these characters arrived at this point in their lives. ( )

free copy won through Member Giveaway

I don't normally read police/crime investigation books, so this was a new genre for me. I would have liked to have had the back story of the previous two books before reading this one, but I figured the plot out easily enough.

I found the storyline to be interesting. The first bit of the book was a bit choppy by the author smoothed things out after the rough start. The author did a good job of portraying the complexity of detective work and the range of emotions felt by Rizzo and his daughter. I enjoyed discovering a new genre, not sure if I'll pick up any similar books, but this one was pretty good. ( )

An excellent follow up, leaving Rizzo some time for further adventures and his daughter to take over the series. ( )

There are two things I wish I had known before entering to win a copy of this from the publisher:

1) This is the third installment in the "Rizzo" series of novels by Lou Manfredo. It stands on its own pretty well, but I think it might help to understand Rizzo's character arc by reading the first two books. (I did try to read the first book, Rizzo's War, but I found the prose to be completely unreadable. More on that in a bit.)

2) This, along with the other Rizzo novels, is a "police procedural". This means that, instead of focusing on the solving of one crime like most detective novels, it attempts to accurately depict the daily activities of police offers as they work many different cases.

As a procedural, I think this book works pretty well. It follows an older detective (Rizzo) as well as a complete rookie (the titular daughter), so you get a taste of the different kinds of cases each might work. I don't doubt that this aspect of the novel is fairly realistic, and for those who enjoy reading just this kind of detective novel, it won't disappoint. Personally, I think the sort of "patchwork" quality of this book means it lacks a driving and cohesive storyline. The book flows along well enough (after the 70pgs it took for me to get into it), but I felt zero urgency in the story. I don't know if it's typical of procedurals or not, but there was no build-up or climax for me.

Of course, plenty of novels lack the "rising-action>falling-action" form. Most literary novels are like that, probably. But literary novels usually offer something else instead, namely character and style. And in these two areas, Rizzo's Daughter doesn't excel.

Like I said before, I think one would probably get a much better hold on the character of Rizzo by reading the novels in order. But I didn't. I only read this one, and what stuck out to me most is that other characters kept talking about how tough and cold and dangerous Joe Rizzo can be. But I never really saw it in the character himself. I don't wanna hear about it; I wanna see it. (And since I was originally interested in this book because I thought it was about the mafia, I would like to have seen a mob boss with some actual menace.) Also, the female characters are very, very thin (characterization-wise).

Now, the reason I didn't read the first two books is because the first one, Rizzo's War, is just terribly written: lots of over-writing, excessive adverbs, descriptions of people's eyes, etc. The dialogue is stilted and doesn't represent how people really talk at all. Basically, it has all the hallmarks of a person who worked in the field (criminal justice) and then decided they want to be a writer of police fiction, talent be damned. And there are still some problems with the writing in Rizzo's Daughter. Manfredo still packs his dialogue with a lot of exposition that he obviously wants the reader to know but can't figure out how else to work in. He still uses adverbs. And a couple of his sentences just struck me as terrible ("the couple laughed into each other's eyes"). BUT! On the whole, the prose in this book is a HUGE improvement over Rizzo's War, and for that, I am giving this book an extra star.

Disclaimer: I received a free advance copy of this book from the publisher. ( )

I gave this book 4 stars because I couldn't figure out how to give 3.5 and the author deserves that extra half.

I started this book and got about 30 pages in and thought what have I gotten myself into. I found the dialogue to be choppy and had to read several pages twice. After the initial 30 pages it smoothed out and became a good book. The only drawback I noticed (and it's strictly an opinion) was the main character in Joe Rizzo being almost unbelievable in how he interacted through the rest of the book. The emotions that the author brings are genuine and well done. The book is worth a read. ( )