I bought the Carlucci 3 in 1 book in part on the strength of [b:The Rosetta Codex|107822|The Rosetta Codex|Richard Paul Russo|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1171576320s/107822.jpg|1152799], in part because my wife likes crime books. The latter motive worked out.


Destroying Angel

In a gritty, modern San Francisco, an ex-cop and a teenage girl separately look out for a serial killer. There is an SF element to the book, but it's largely a crime story. As SF, it does a fair job describing a depressing near future San Francisco that's separated by class and inhabited by interesting characters. Unfortunately, Russo works a little too hard on painting the picture. Pretty much every time the protagonists turn around, there's another description of a new category of characters. After a while, it's just too much - we get the picture, it's gritty. I don't need to see the details of each particular kind of grit.

Rather than just running description, I would have preferred to see more about how this stratified society actually works. For example, Russo sets up the Tenderloin as a special sector that's hard to get in and out of. But after the first time, characters seem to get in and out with no trouble at all. And with so much of the city seemingly given over to vice and violence, it's hard to see why a special district is needed.

The story itself is a fairly straightforward crime story. It's reasonably well done, but nothing special. The characters are interesting, and the book stays readable, but not hard to put down. At some points, I was reluctant to pick it back up, but that may be because I'm more interested in SF than crime.

All in all, probably worth a read if you're a crime fan who can tolerate SF. Less worthy for SF fans who can tolerate crime.


Carlucci's Edge

The problem with describing a depraved society is that the violations need to be even more depraved to be credible. I found Carlucci's Edge to be less satisfying than its prequel. The plot, for one thing, hinged on a situation that was completely unsurprising in the milieu as described. The denouement left me wanting, thinking isn't there more?, even though it had been clear for some time that there wasn't.

The characters themselves were mildly interesting, but not deeply. Russo sets up several close relationships, but they were largely described in a cursory manner, and it was difficult to feel much about them.

The first novel had the benefit of (over-)describing a new and interesting environment. This story, though more involved, is less interesting, and neither engages our interest in the environment, nor sets out a sufficiently intriguing mystery to carry itself.

If you really liked Destroying Angel, or really like crime stories, this is worth a read, but otherwise, pass.


Carlucci's Heart

I found this story to be similar to its immediate predecessor, Carlucci's Edge, though with a bit more emotion to it. Russo completes several cycles, in a sense, by finally going further into the Core, and by tying up some loose ends about New Hong Kong.

Fundamentally, however, Edge and Heart were similar - Carlucci chances on a case, encounters resistance, deals with 'slugs', and spends a lot of time in the Tenderloin. His wife and family play a slightly larger role in this book, but while they play a nominally central role, they feel much more like adjuncts than key players.

Overall, a decent police story with a mild SF edge. Russo continues to rely heavily on pass-by descriptions of strange characters than on a fully developed economy or environment, and it shows.


Trilogy as a whole

As I noted at the beginning, I'm an SF reader, not a crime reader. These books are written for the converse audience. For me, they weren't satisfying. The SF trimmings are exactly that - trimmings. While the plot does depend on them in some way, an only slightly modified plot could have taken place in 1850. Russo depends quite a lot on description of outre types and a modern-noir feel, but I never had the feeling that his San Francisco could be a real place. For one thing, despite all the dropping of familiar street names, there's never a sense of the city as a whole, and how it functions on an economic and social level. The focus is always on the bizarre Tenderloin district, but Russo undercuts himself in selling it as isolated but showing that there is virtually unlimited access to it. If it's unclear how the city operates, the same is true of the Tenderloin, and, at the opposite end, of the nation as a whole - it's not even clear what the nation is.

As crime fiction, the stories seem acceptable, though I'm not the best judge. As science fiction, they don't work well. As literature in general, they're passable. It's clear from The Rosetta Codex that Mr. Russo can write fairly well. I don't believe he's done it here.
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This is a collection of 3 stories that feature San Francisco cop Frank Carlucci in a mid-21st Century world that hasn’t fared so well. Most of the action takes place within the Tenderloin, an area of the city where society's dregs and misfits have made their own. It's segregated from the rest of the city but there are ways in if you know who's palm to grease.

Destroying Angel

The first book in the Carlucci trilogy doesn't really feature him as a main character. This one has retired cop Louis Tanner realising he'll have to deal with some unfinished business before he'll be at peace with himself. Set in a future San Francisco, this is very much a cyberpunk detective story. Tanner watches as two bodies chained together are pulled from the lake and realises that his past has come to pay its respects. Two years earlier Tanner was one of the cops helping to investigate the serial killer known as the Chain Killer. He'd just received a tip-off but the source, Rattan, was not a nice man and he wanted an awful lot. But as suddenly as the began, the killings stopped and other things happened in Tanner's life and he never followed up on the lead. Now, even though he's no longer a cop, he might have to and that would mean going back into them# most disreputable part of the city, the Tenderloin and perhaps even worse, into the Core.

This short novel tries to marry up the best elements of cyberpunk to a noir thriller but doesn't really succeed that well. The story is okay but nothing special and I lost count of the number of bad cups of coffee that were drunk but the atmosphere and a couple of quite likeable characters go a long way to redeeming what would otherwise be an instantly forgettable effort. Hopefully book 2 will be better. 3½★'s

Carlucci's Edge

This is the second book of the trilogy and is set three years after the events of the first (see Msg108 for that review) and not much has changed. Lt. Frank Carlucci knew he'd reached as high as he was ever going to get in the police force, he'd rubbed too many people up the wrong way to go any higher and had only made it this far because of what he knew about the Chain Killer case. His latest investigation was giving him a lot of heat from above but that's something to be expected when the Mayor's nephew ends up on the wrong end of a meat hook. Then a friend of Mixer's (someone he knew from the Chain Killer case) asks him to look into why nothing is being done about the murder of her lover, a fellow musician that would get involved in low-level dodgy dealings who expired due to the three extra holes in his head. Intrigued as to why he hadn't even been aware of the killing, Carlucci agrees to take a look only to find that the case is being officially buried and that the officers in charge of it are also being screwed because of it. As that doesn't sit too well with him, Carlucci starts an unofficial investigation all of his own and when links begin to emerge with this and the other case then things only get more complicated.

Once again we get the fusion of murder/mystery with cyberpunk only this time the two parts are melded much more cohesively. I'm sure the world building from the previous story having already set the scene allowing this one to just build upon it made a difference but there are also less generic elements to how the story unfolded. Still only a fairly short novel but there is more space for the character's to breathe and for the story to be pieced together. The mystery element isn't too hard to untangle as the hints aren't exactly subtly dropped into the reader's lap but you want to follow this to the conclusion to see if those responsible get their just desserts Still copious amounts of bad coffee getting drunk but this time around there's also some bad scotch to accompany it with. 4★'s.

Carlucci's Heart

Lt. Frank Carlucci is a rarity in a future version of San Francisco. He's an honest cop who's still trying to make a difference in a world that's increasingly less so. In this, the third of the trilogy, he's investigating the murder of Naomi Katsuda, daughter of New Hong Kong's representative on Earth, while also looking into the death of a friend of his own daughter. Both cases seem to have links to Cancer Cell, a group of medico-terrorists that offer experimental treatments to the terminally ill who agree to be used as guinea pigs in exchange. Are Cancer Cell also behind the release of a new disease that seems to be spreading outwards from the Core and is almost 100% fatal to those who've contracted it?

This is the longest of the three Carlucci stories and also the most complex. There are many threads woven throughout and we follow a few strands to get to the heart of things. Not only do we follow Carlucci himself as he struggles to make sense of what's going on but we also have his daughter Caroline as she tries to infiltrate Cancer Cell on her own. Then there is Cage, a doctor who gives most of his time to a free clinic, who is one of the first to see the seriousness of the outbreak of this new disease. Will these threads come together to form a clear picture in the end and who is the one really pulling the strings? 4★'s.

Summary

While I have been labelling these books as cyberpunk there really isn't that much in the way of technology to justify that tag. Maybe future-noir would be better as these stories are more detective novel just being set in a mid-21st century world that seems to be mostly unpleasant. The setting does draw the reader in though but what really makes these worth the read are the characters. They are all quite believable for the world which they inhabit and the motivations for their actions. You really want the bad guys to get their just desserts in the end but you're always unsure that they will and that is what ultimately kept me reading and overall enjoying these books. ( )