Safe Harbour

Before his strange death in 1997 (his body was found hanging outside his Chicago office), Eugene Izzi wrote some of the best crime fiction in recent memory. His hard-edged books like A Matter of Honor and The Criminalist are told from the criminal's point of view.Safe Harbor was first published in England in 1995, when Izzi was having trouble finding an American outlet. It's a familiar the mobster who becomes an informer for the best of reasons (in this case to protect his child) and then enters a witness protection program and goes on to lead a blameless life. Mark Torrence (called Tommy Torelli in his criminal days) is threatened in his new and secret life by a ghost from the past--a vengeful hit man named James Bracken. This vicious and depraved killer has his own very good and perversely logical reasons for hunting down Torrence.What gives the book new life and lots of energy is the way Izzi develops his characters using small strokes of reality. Even the incredibly obnoxious next-door neighbor who accidentally leaks Torrence's true identity is made human because we get to peek into his daily life.Not having any more new books by Izzi to look forward to is a great loss, but the late arrival of Safe Harbor makes it a bit more bearable.--Dick Adler