Exceptional Clearance by William J Caunitz

            An OK Thriller

Synopsis: There have been a series of violent murders involving women with no known connection having their throats slashed with a some kind of weapon that the NY City coroners have never seen before. A special task force is set up to catch the mysterious killer and Lt. John Vinda, a tainted cop is placed in charge of the investigation (partially because he's that good and partially because he will be easy to pin the blame on since he is already damaged goods).

 Exceptional Clearance was an enjoyable read, but it was kind of like eating a handful of candy - it was fun while it was going down but there wasn't much to it. There was an interesting twist to the manhunt in that the cop and the serial killer have both suffered similar losses. It is interesting to see how the serial killer has warped himself into a monster while Vinda has buried himself in his job to avoid his pain. In reality, he's not dealing with his loss that much better than the killer.
William J. Caunitz
Caunitz (1933-1996) was a retired NYPD detective so the language and scenes ring true and it is fun to watch the chase unfold. I dropped the rating for this book a bit for a couple of the more contrived scenes
 
I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Exceptional Clearance  

Reviewed on February 11, 2005.

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