Contract on Cherry Street — Philip Rosenberg

For almost a year Detective Inspector Frank Hovannes and his partner Lieutenant Ernie Fleming, track Big Sallie Manzano, the East Side boss trying desperately to tie him to a hijacking and murder ring. Slowly his stability begins to crumble and in despair he confesses to Fleming, The only way we'll ever get Manzano is just the two of us go out and hit him. But they never get a chance. When Fleming is gunned down by a trigger-happy thug, Hovannes knows he's alone against the mob his partner is dead and the Department does not give a damn. He forms his own undercover unit. Finally the conflicts private obsessions and hatreds explode in a night of butchery. Yet far more horrifying than the bloodletting is the ultimate realization that there is little difference between law and order and anarchy, no difference at all between the hunters, and the hunted. There are no winners in this brilliant and disturbing novel, but the biggest losers are the man and women who follow their consciences.