| Title | : | Sunrise Highway (Lourdes Robles, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1250117410 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781250117410 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 339 |
| Publication | : | First published September 4, 2018 |
From Peter Blauner, the writer Dennis Lehane calls "one of the most consistently bracing and interesting voices in American crime literature," comes a new thriller about a lone young cop on the trail of a powerful killer determined not just to stop her, but to make her pay.
In the summer of Star Wars and Son of Sam, a Long Island schoolgirl is found gruesomely murdered. A local prosecutor turns a troubled teenager known as JT from a suspect to a star witness in the case, putting away a high school football star who claimed to be innocent. Forty years later, JT has risen to chief of police, but there's a trail of a dozen dead women that reaches from Brooklyn across Long Island, along the Sunrise Highway, and it's possible that his actions actually enabled a killer.
That's when Lourdes Robles, a relentless young Latina detective for the NYPD, steps in to track the serial killer. She discovers a deep and sinister web of connections between the victims and some of the most powerful political figures in the region, including JT himself. Now Lourdes not only has to catch a killer, but maybe dismantle an entire system that's protected him, possibly at the cost of her own life.
Sunrise Highway (Lourdes Robles, #2) Reviews
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My reviews can also be seen at:
https://deesradreadsandreviews.wordpr...
“Sunrise Highway” opens in 2017 with the investigation of a body that recently washed up on the shores of Rockaway Beach. Investigating is Lourdes Robles, a detective for the NYPD. Lourdes is an excellent detective who was recently promoted. However, she’s also being accused of using NYPD resources for personal reasons. Lourdes younger sister, Ysabel is missing. Anytime a young woman’s body is found, Lourdes can’t relax until she confirms that it’s not her sister.
There are some unusual things about this present murder case and when Lourdes finds a link to a murder case from forty years earlier, she’s determined to bring the person/persons responsible to justice.
Forty years earlier, Kenny Makris is a local prosecutor attending a crime scene where a fifteen-year-old girl’s body has been found. Kenny meets up with Detective William Rattigan known as “Billy the Kid”. The detective has a high success rate when it comes to solving homicides. But some there are some people that question his methods. The detective's other nickname is “The Prince of Pain”.
The detective tells Kenny that this case could make his career. He says that Kenny is either with them or against them. But he’s pleased when Kenny agrees that they should do whatever it takes to make sure someone pays for this crime. They have someone in custody that they say is responsible for the young girl’s death. They also have a witness named Joseph Toliver (Joey T) who can help make their case.
Forty years later Joey T is now JT the Chief of Police. Is it possible that his actions long ago enabled a killer to go free? Did it lead to more than a dozen dead women all found along the Sunrise Highway?
Now Lourdes is determined to find out just how everything is connected. Unfortunately, there are people who don’t want the truth to come out, people who will stop at nothing to keep Lourdes from investigating further.
This was my first read from Peter Blauner. When I started reading this novel, I didn’t realize it was the second book in the Lourdes Robles series. While I don’t think it’s necessary to read book one, it may have filled in a few blanks if I had read it.
This novel started strong with a prologue that grabbed my attention immediately. I was intrigued. The timeline shifts between past and present and there's a lot going on. I did have a bit of a hard time, in the beginning, keeping all the characters straight, but it did get easier as I continued on. The characters were well developed and I especially liked Lourdes Robles. She is a great character and I look forward to reading more about her in future books.
“ Sunrise Highway” was an interesting and intense read with a good plot and great characters. A story of murder, politics, and corruption with an ending that I never saw coming. I’m looking forward to reading the next book in this series as well as other books from this author.
I'd like to thank Minotaur Books for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review. -
Sunrise Highway is The second book in Blauner’s Lourdes Robles police thriller series featuring a sharp, tenacious, kick-ass Latina NY police detective who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks but will stop at nothing to catch the perpetrator. This novel is a cat and mouse game with a powerful serial killer that tracks back decades. The writing is crisp and the story compelling. You may want to put the book down when your eyelids close for sleep, but probably not for anything else.
Often the juxtaposition between alternating timelines and points of view can be jarring to the reader and it is at first, but Blauner ties it together so well that it works here.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books for providing an advance copy for review. -
I usually prefer not knowing the identity of a killer in a book. However, in this case, we do get to know who the guilty is pretty early on. It was quite interesting to follow two storylines, the one in the present time where Lourdes Robles is investigating one murder who turns out to be the latest in a long line of murders. In the other storyline do we follow JT 's rise through the ranks. And, I can't write much more than that without spoiling the story.
So, instead, I will focus on Lourdes Robles, this awesome detective for the NYPD who is the one that through the finding of the body of a young woman starts to unravel a serial killer case. Lourdes is also searching for her younger sister who is missing and each woman found dead makes her sick with worry that it will turn out to be Izzy. Lourdes own father is in prison and she is just the kind of badass female cop I love to read about.
Sunrise Highway is the second book in the Lourdes Robles series and you definitely can read this book without having read the first one. I know this since I haven't read the first book (yet). Now I can't wait to read the first book, and hopefully more books in the series.
I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review! -
A long time ago I read 'The Intruder' by Peter Blauner and thoroughly enjoyed it so I have meant to read more of his books for some time. When offered the opportunity to read 'Sunrise Highway' I jumped at it and started it very soon after receiving it. Maybe I had expected too much after my first venture into his writing but after a decent start to the novel I failed to engage with the characters as much as I had hoped. Maybe on reflection I could raise my score to a 4 star but after with my high level of expectancy I wanted more.
Lourdes Robles is a young detective for the NYPD and is trying to track down a serial killer. The investigation gets dangerous when Lourdes discovers connections between the victims and some very powerful local political figures. Her attempts to hunt down the killer and the corrupt system threaten to cost Lourdes not only her job but her life.
I would like to thank Net Galley and St Martins Press for supplying a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. -
This book has alternating time periods, a hardcore cop & a murder investigation that is very intense & so well plotted out. If you’re a fan of police procedural TV shows then this one will be for you!
Thanks to Minotaur for this early copy:) -
-Worth Your Time And Money!
Sunrise Highway is the eighth book by Peter Blauner that I've read and I’ve enjoyed them all. Without going into details about the plot of Sunrise Highway, which is the second book featuring Detective Lourdes Robles, I'll just say that it is a very good police procedural that involves the discovery of a body washed up on a beach in Far Rockaway, NY that subsequently leads to a trail of murdered women along the Sunrise Highway in Long Island that dates back forty years.
In Sunrise Highway Blauner provides readers early on with answers to "who did it" and then has readers follow Lourdes Robles as she connects the dots and works to discover the truth about who committed the serial murders and why.
Overall, I'd recommend that mystery lovers consider reading Sunrise Highway for the same reasons as I enjoyed each of Blauner's previous seven crime novels; namely
... its very rich, multi-dimensional, credible and complex cast of primary and secondary characters,
...its smart dialogue,
...its strong prose that enables the reader to capture the "mood, sights, sounds and smells" of the areas in which the plot takes place, and
...its ability to provide sufficiently realistic twists and turns to keep the reader turning the pages to find out what happens next.
Be aware, however, that if you are expecting a lot of action scenes in Sunrise Highway, you might be somewhat disappointed, as the driving force of this book is the richness of its complex characters.
As you can tell from my comments above, I enjoyed Sunrise Highway and recommend it; but I do not consider it to be worthy of a 5-star rating. That's because I found the frequent jumping back and forth in time over a forty year period to be, at times, mildly confusing, interruptive and distracting.
#Sunrise Highway #Net Galley. -
'Sunrise Highway' is a fine addition to Peter Blauner's series starring NYPD detective Lourdes Robles, a lady with 99 problems (but being passive ain't one....). She's a full-bodied Latina with a strong personality, lots of opinions, a terrible family history, a missing sister, and a relentless passion for finding the truth. Blauner has created a fine character in Lourdes and I hope he has a few more stories about her exploits in him.
The plot of Sunrise Highway is told in a number of flashbacks from back to the 70's to current days. A killing takes place long ago on Long Island and over the years other victims turn up. In current days, a body wrapped in plastic is fished out of a river and Robles gets involved on a task force set up to investigate the killings, which now seem to be the work of a serial killer. We see the dogged determination to get past all the procedural and personal obstacles in her path begin to have results, but we are also able to witness the depravity and history behind the killings and their ongoing coverup by higher ups in the Long Island political and police hierarchy. Is justice served in the end? Depends on your definition of justice.....
Sunrise Highway is an interesting take on the serial killer novel with an extremely strong character, good writing and dialogue, and a mixed ending. It's well worth a look if you like a good mystery with a tough female lead. -
NYC detective Lourdes connects a murder in her jurisdiction with others along Sunrise Highway in Nassau and Suffolk counties. But not only must she convince her boss that there's possibly a serial murderer on the loose, but also the authorities in the two other counties. And the Suffolk County police chief and everyone around him are resisting and acting suspiciously. There's a lot of corruption and things start getting very dangerous for Lourdes and any witness she talks to. A page turner.
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It is one of those grim, ironic turns that the incident that begins SUNRISE HIGHWAY --- a woman in distress, frantically pounding on a locked door and seeking help --- was dramatically mirrored in the real world just a few days before the novel (written several months prior) was offered for sale. While author Peter Blauner is no stranger to exploring contemporary topics in a timely manner through his episodic screenwriting of such television series as “Law & Order: SVU” and “Blue Bloods,” here it seems almost prescient. But even without the apparent intersection of the imagination and reality, this opening sinks the hook into the reader for the next 300 pages or so until story’s end.
SUNRISE HIGHWAY is the nominal successor to PROVING GROUND, which introduced Lourdes Robles, an extremely talented and driven NYPD detective. Lourdes is haunted by the disappearance of her younger sister Izzy, who is troubled by demons that she tries to simultaneously tame and feed with streets drugs. When the remains of a female are found wrapped in plastic on Long Island, Lourdes wonders if she might be Izzy. The dead woman, whose mouth has been jammed with rocks and was apparently pregnant when she was killed, turns out to be another poor soul.
Still, the corpse puts Lourdes on an investigative path that stretches back to the late 1970s, when a high school girl was found murdered under somewhat similar circumstances. A boy named Joey Tolliver, the teenage son of a Long Island cop, testified that the murderer was a local football star, who protested his innocence to no avail. Tolliver ended up pursuing a career in law enforcement and is now chief of police, running his fiefdom with a combination of charm and fear.
A trail of dead women stretch from the past to the present, and all of them were found by or near the Sunrise Highway. Tolliver lays the blame on New York criminals who use Long Island as a dumping ground, but Lourdes finds that theory wanting. She continues to push her investigation, a course of action that puts her in the path of entrenched law enforcement in an area where the seemingly quiet surface of the local city streets hides at least one murderer who is ready to kill and kill again. Meanwhile, Izzy remains missing, but Lourdes may end up endangering both of them, even as she approaches a line she shouldn’t cross, but may have to.
Blauner combines his considerable and ever-present cinematic and narrative chops to fine effect in SUNRISE HIGHWAY. As with his television work, there is really no good place to stop, so be prepared for a marathon reading session. The last third of the book uncorks a couple of surprises, at least one of which may play out in a future installment of the series.
Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub -
More than just a brilliant police procedural, this thriller resonated totally with me, a longtime Suffolk County, Long Island resident. In real life, Long Island has long been a breeding ground for serial killers as well as corrupt cops -- even at the highest levels. Blauner weaves the two realities into a superb thriller.
Blauner also obviously knows Long Island through which Sunrise Highway runs. This is how he describes the Homicide Division building in Hauppaugue: “The building itself had no more character than thousands of other office structures on Long Island. Places so dull in appearance that no one would normally think to ask what went on in them.” Spot-on about the building — and about Long Island office architecture!
Blauner is also a remarkable writer in his ability to present the psychological abuse a woman, like his protagonist, Lourdes Robles, a Latina NYPD detective faces in the totally male-dominated world of law enforcement. As it turns out, the psychological turns physical for Robles at the hands of the Neanderthal cops of Suffolk County while she is trying to solve murders that point to one killer across county lines. Loved Robles. Happy to hear that she debuted in a prior Blauner thriller, Proving Ground. On my TBR list for 2019. -
Highly suspenseful and tightly developed, the evolution of a serial killer over the course of 40 years is examined in chapters that shift back and forth through time in this amazing thriller. The idea that these crimes have been committed through NYC, Nassau, and Suffolk County by a sociopath connected with law enforcement is given credibility given the territoriality issues and lack of cooperation plaguing each jurisdiction. Moreover, various political figures become involved with kickbacks, coverups, and favors to further complicate the all-important issue of preserving property values and cultural boundaries. As these elements collide, it is all too plausible to imagine the frustration and resistance confronting a single detective trying to courageously preserve the integrity of the institution she loves when faced with a network controlled by evil and greed.
Having lived in all three localities, I can attest to the authenticity of Peter Blauner's premise that there is an innate lack of trust and cooperation between these powers that be, often to the detriment of the citizens they are supposed to protect. This book reminded me how glad I was to have moved out of New York. -
This book is the second Lourdes Roble series, coming after 'Proven Ground'. Lourdes is a detective for the New York City Police Department and finds herself caught up in a murder investigation that is a more than it appears to be on the surface.
The novel goes back and forth in time and it soon becomes obvious that there is a serial killer at large. The Long Island Police Departments are trying to take the case from the New York City cops and Lourdes is trying not to step on toes. At the same time, she realizes that the depth of corruption and political intrigue that surround this case have great depths.
My favorite part of this novel is Lourdes's search for her mentally ill sister who she is afraid she may never see again.
I love a good mystery, especially one about a hunted serial killer. However, I didn't like the writing style and found the narrative uneven and prosaic. -
Thank you to Net Gallery for an advance reader copy of Sunrise Highway (Lourdes Robles Novels) by Peter Blauner. This book first peaked my interest because I live right off of Sunrise Highway and wanted to see if it was a story based on where I live and it turned out that it was. I did enjoy the story, I know the book was a work of fiction but got me thinking that the story must be based in truth somewhere and has made me suspicious of the local police departments. The only issue I had with the story was that I felt that the ending was rushed and wrapped up to quickly, otherwise I would highly recommend this book.
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Peter Blauner has not only written other crime novels, but has worked on television shows such as “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” Like that TV series, this book is dark, with violence towards women as well as lots of corruption and unfairness plaguing the “justice” system. From a personal standpoint, I would have enjoyed it more if I could have looked at it as fanciful rather than as echoing so many unfortunate aspects of real life these days.
Lourdes Robles is an NYPD detective with the Queens Homicide Task Force. A body turns up with an unusual cause of death, and before long, Lourdes begins to notice a pattern going back thirty years. But she runs into opposition from the higher-ups in the police. As her old partner Kevin Sullivan pointed out to her, while there were plenty of good cops, “experience had taught him that within every constabulary force was a core of officers who were intolerant of democracy and far more sympathetic to authoritarianism.”
If only a tendency towards despotism were the worst of it…. Before long, the pushback on the investigation by Lourdes turns deadly.
Evaluation: This thriller is well-written, with the narrative going back-and-forth in time to fill in gaps in the story revealed in the chapters set in the present day. It’s the kind of story that if I saw Jim watching it on television, I would ask him to go sequester himself in the basement so I wouldn’t have to risk having nightmares. But Lourdes is a great protagonist (she also appeared in an earlier novel, Proving Ground) and the other characters are convincingly portrayed. The author is a sharp-eyed observer of the worlds both inside and outside the law, and also of that shadowy space in between them.
Rating: 3.5/5 -
The Chief of Police Joseph Tolliver is the serial killer.
Oops. Spoiler.
The author lets us know who the killer is and lets us watch him grow into a psychopathic killer from an early age.
Lourde's, the protagonist, father is in prison for life.
Her mother is in an assisted living facility, senile at sixty.
Her brother died of an OD
Her young sister has gone off her meds and disappeared.
So how's your life?
Lourde's is on the hunt for a serial killer working out on Long Island. Her worst fears are coming true as it looks like a police officer, now the Chief of Police, is the killer. Can she prove it before it costs her her job or worse her life.
A good story but the vignette with the time jump style of telling it makes it a difficult read at times.
Starts in 2017 for a couple pages then jumps to 1977 for a couple pages back to 2017 for a couple pages then jumps back to 1977 then back to 2017 then jumps to 1982 for a couple pages and back to 2017 for a couple pages.
So you see how this can be a little annoying.
Letting the reader know who the killer was and who helped him keep his secret was an interesting, unique way of telling the story. Not the easiest of reads but worth the struggle. 3 1/2 stars
'Pain and helpless terror no longer excited him the way they used to.'
-Joey Tolliver the Chief of Police -
I was a big fan of Peter Blauner's when he was publishing several years ago (The Intruder; Man of the Hour), so it's great to have him back in the literary world. This book is entertaining and engaging, but it does feel a bit more like a CSI episode as opposed to the fully realized novels he wrote previously. The story switches back and forth between a modern-day murder investigation and a serial killer who hunted people through the eighties. These storylines eventually converge, but the scenes with the killer were more interesting and suspenseful than those with the police. Even so, it's a good read.
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This is the second book in a series about Latina New York City police detective Lourdes Robles. It is not necessary to have read the first one to follow the characters and action of this story.
The plot line revolves around a murder investigation that leads to a corrupt police chief and supporting high profile individuals and includes three different timelines. Once you get into the rhythm of moving among the timelines, this literary device works well in revealing the story.
The antagonist was such a despicable character I had a little problem engaging with the book, yet couldn’t put it down as I kept hoping that justice would prevail. -
Lourdes Robles is a New York Detective that doesn't give up easily, not on her cases and not on her missing sister and she isn't going to give up on her current case either. What looks to be a serial killer strangling young women going back years and cover-ups in the department have her fighting mad. The story jumps back from the present day find of a murder victim to what may be the start of the killer. Murder, politics and a feisty cop - this is one tense read. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.
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Lourdes Robles returns, one of the best characters introduced last year. Detective Robles is called out on a case on Long Island which may be linked to a long line of murders. Meanwhile, her sister, Issy, is missing and vulnerable to a possible serial killer. Terrifying, dark thriller.
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Here's my Mystery Scene review that appears in the Fall issue (#156) of the magazine -
https://www.mysteryscenemag.com/compo... -
Sunrise Highway is a thriller that takes place along Sunrise Highway on Long Island. It’s about a Latina NYPD detective’s quest to find the killer of female prostitutes. As the pieces fit together she finds out there are many players and people covering for the killer. An entire system that includes powerful political figures along with chief of police are involved. During the course of this investigation she is also on the search of her sister who disappeared awhile back. The truth ends with the uncovering that the chief of police did the murders with the help of the DA who’s lives go way back. The author gives details of how the chief has risen to such a high position while covering his tracks and getting the help of political figures and police. The novel shows how one female investigator’s persistence against an entire corrupt system and high figures pays off to bring justice. It also shows how far people of power will go in their corruption and dishonesty to benefit themselves. The book was interesting especially since it takes place where I live but I wish it had more of a mystery to it, more exciting and more twists. It reminded me as a copy cat to the Gilgo Beach murders that took place on Long Island that were never solved.
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This was a very confusing book and it took me a long time to get into/understand it. It goes between different characters and years in every chapter and is hard to follow. A young woman's body washes up on beach in Queens and the detective investigating the case, Lourdes Robles, finds that this case might be part of a serial killer's work that involves some very high up and connected police officers.
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Crime fiction at it's very best!
