New Ben Sanders Novel an Engrossing Chase Story

“In earlier Ben Sanders books, Marshall Grade worked undercover for the NYPD. When he made serious enemies in the criminal subculture, the federal cops hid him far away in the witness protection programme,” Toronto Star reviewer Jack Batten writes. “Now, in the new book [Marshall’s Law], unknown bad guys sniff Marshall out, sending him on the run back to New York City where he plots to reign in his enemies.

“Tossed into this always engrossing chase story are an assortment of dandy subplots and an impressive collection of pathological killers and vaguely unusual cops. We get a criminal mastermind who seems unnaturally cool for a guy who owes New York’s Chinese mob five million bucks; one cop who reads Saul Bellow, another who’s devoted to Don DeLillo; and a large super sadistic killer named Ludo Coltrane. Oddly, no one in the book asks this guy with the rare last name if he’s related to the late great tenor saxophonist.

“In another curiosity, it seems remarkable that, for a book with such essentially American qualities – Elmore Leonardesque characters, nice verisimilitude in the depiction of New York’s boroughs – Sanders, its author, is a born, bred and still resident New Zealander.”

Sanders was born in 1989. He lives in Auckland.

Original article by Jack Batten, Toronto Star, April 8, 2017.