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The Blue Wall is Kenneth Abel writing about police corruption with the same careful patience he brings to Louisiana parish politics in the Danny Chaisson series. The protagonist is a young Bronx-based federal prosecutor trying to build a case against a precinct that has been running an extortion racket. The titular blue wall is the way the rank-and-file close around the bad actors at the top.
Abel handles the moral pressure on the prosecutor with care. The book is not interested in cheap procedural reveal. It is interested in what happens to a young person whose job requires them to ask their fellow professionals to betray each other. The supporting characters (the prosecutor's mother, his old detective contact, the wife of one of the dirty cops) all earn their pages.
Four stars. Another underrated Kenneth Abel novel. Recommended to readers of the Danny Chaisson series and to fans of literary American crime fiction generally.
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