The receding floodwaters of a hurricane reveal corruption at both ends of the social spectrum in Detective Eddy Harkness' Boston. Harkness' Narco-Intel unit is supposed to stick to drugs, all the drugs, and nothing but the drugs. But sometimes it's hard to walk away from other problems, as it is when Harkness and his partner, Detective Patrick Fitzgerald, drive through the Lower South End to make sure it's been evacuated in anticipation of fast-moving Hurricane X and discover two people who haven't left: veteran drug dealer Levon Ashmont, because he's dead, and his deaf nephew, whose mother never took the trouble to name him, because he's chained to a nearby radiator. Anyone else who risked his life to rescue the boy would be hailed as a hero, but Harkness has too much history (Third Rail, 2014) for that. Instead, he resigns himself to following the trail of Dark Horse, the villainous new blend of high-grade heroin and cheap brown lactose Ashmont was peddling and using to his own grave detriment. Even after Dark Horse claims the lives of two Harvard undergrads, though, it's clear that Harkness isn't fully committed to the job of rooting it out. Instead, he focuses more closely on the Harbormasters, a well-connected civic organization that seems to be the power behind Mayor Michael O'Mara; the invasion of his own hometown by the dozens of "wanderers," displaced Bostonians whom seamstress/activist Jennet Townsend has led to Nagog to take advantage of a 200-year-old law that allows them to squat in local homeowners' unused outbuildings; and the ticklish question of when and where he should pop the question to Candace Hammond. Less a mystery, despite the multiple deaths by violence, than an old-fashioned tale of Boston's political corruption that reads like a more hard-knuckle version of The Lash Hurrah. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

During a late-summer hurricane, Boston narcotics detective Eddy Harkness and his team discover a deaf boy, alone with the still warm body of his uncle and a boatload of Dark Horse, a particularly lethal heroin brand, in a South End apartment. Mayor Mark O'Meara is a notorious slimeball in a city known for monumental scumbags. His latest scheme is a major real estate development that will replace South End's poor residents with a pristine monument to yuppie living. Eddy thinks that is a bad idea, especially when it becomes clear the mayor's plotting may be the fuel behind the surge in Dark Horse. VERDICT Populated with crafty politicians and hard-core activists raging against the machine, -Flynn's follow-up to Third Rail is a terrific atmospheric thriller. Fans of Dennis -Lehane and Robert B. Parker will -welcome this Boston cop. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Dark Horse, a brand of particularly potent heroin, is cutting a broad swath through Boston's South End in Flynn's overly ambitious second Eddy Harkness novel (after 2014's Third Rail). Meanwhile, a hurricane hits Southie hard, displacing many residents, some of whom take advantage of a strange old law that allows them to seek sanctuary in the quiet suburb of Nagog. Boston mayor Michael O'Mara and some of the city's most powerful organizations-the Manchester Group and a "private civic think tank" called the Harbormasters-aren't too upset by the havoc, as it represents a chance to rebuild the working-class neighborhood into an affluent enclave. Flynn is an extremely observant, skillful writer ("Stealing Yankee money arouses a special kind of anger, since each penny is so carefully pinched"). And Harkness is an attractive character, but the plot becomes so broad-drug trafficking, conspiracy, gentrification, political machinations, even a subplot involving the Boston Public Library-that the book loses focus and urgency. Agent: Dan Conaway: Writers House. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The zingy bunch of law enforcers from Third Rail (2013), Flynn's fine first novel, are back with their offbeat methods and droll one-liners intact. But readers looking for a procedural, with maybe a car chase and a shoot-out or two, best look elsewhere. Flynn and his hero, Detective Eddy Harkness, are obsessed here with greedhead real-estate developers, their puppet politicians, and the damage their plans would wreak on Boston. The developers may even be behind the movement of a particularly vicious strain of heroin the Dark Horse of the title into a part of town the money men wish to flatten. They compound their sins by scheming to sell off $3 billion worth of the city library's rare books. The only real sleuthing comes when Harkness and his odd squad spend hours hunting a line in an old city charter that gives the council the right to fire the mayor if he displeases them. A biting look at the horrors of urban renewal and city politics first, and a cop novel second, but well worth the time either way.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2016 Booklist