COVER STORY

Jack McMorrow was ten when his father suffered a devastating heart attack, and though Butch Casey was only a few years older he knew exactly what to say, what to do, to help an emotionally traumatized kid hold it together. Fast forward 30 years. Butch is buried in trouble and jail, and there’s no one but Jack to call on. The police say Butch killed Johnny Fiore, the mayor of New York City. Butch claims innocence, but it’s no secret that the very popular Fiore was extremely unpopular with him. Back in 1988, when he was a cop—and Jack a New York Times reporter—Butch’s wife had been brutally murdered. The killer was caught, an airtight case assembled against him, and yet, incomprehensibly, he walked. Butch blamed Fiore, and so did Jack—in print, a controversial series of stories frowned on by the Times hierarchy that resulted in a bitter parting of the ways. And, after a while, in a new life for Jack (Bloodline, 1998, etc.)—as the owner of a tiny paper in backwoods Maine. But now here’s Butch reaching out, insisting that he has documentation to prove corruption in high places. Jack examines the material skeptically until ugly threats and an attempted murder resolve his doubts. Clearly, Butch has got powerful people badly worried. Jack, quintessential reporter that he is, begins to investigate seriously. And what he finds upsets a lot of Big Applecarts. Edgy characters express themselves in sharp dialogue and do unfailingly interesting things. Boyle gets it all right in this mean-streets story that whizzes by like a New York minute.