CLEVER FOX

The only female Assistant District Attorney in a men’s world may be getting set up as a scapegoat.

New Year’s Eve 1979. Dani Fox is in New York City with her boyfriend, reporter Will Harris, when she’s called to examine the badly mutilated body of a young woman in Westchester County. The superintendent of the building identifies the victim as Vicky and reports that she meets someone who arrives in a limo several times a week and was last visited by someone with a scar on his face. The apartment was rented by the law firm of Gallo & Conti, whose only client is the facially scarred Mafia boss Nicholas Persico, aka The Butcher. Dani’s politically savvy boss gives her the case, much to the dismay of a colleague who specializes in the mob but is way too friendly with obnoxious FBI agent Jack Langhorn. Working with Langhorn is charming, ambitious agent Walter Coyle, whose team has been following Persico. Coyle identifies Persico as the man who spent several hours with Vicky, who turns out to have been the daughter of a New Jersey boss whose mob family has been locking horns with Persico over the lucrative refuse business. Everyone is eager to arrest Persico for the murder, but Dani has a gut feeling that he’s not the killer. Meantime, Dani’s affair with Will is roiled by conflicts involving his reporting on the sensitive case and his jealousy over Coyle, who’s romantically pursuing Dani. It will take help from the FBI profiler unit to solve a case in which only her pal Detective O’Brien has Dani’s back.

The latest from Pirro (Sly Fox, 2012, etc.), a judge and analyst with her own show on the Fox News Channel, showcases her knowledge. The writing may be slightly dry, but she provides lots of local color and insider dope.