LIEBERMAN'S CHOICE

Mad as hell and resolved not to take any more, Chicago cop Bernie Shepard shoots his wife and her lover, then adjourns to the roof of his apartment building, which he's already wired with explosives, and demands that the police send up the man who first seduced and corrupted his spouse—Captain Alan Kearney, now assigned to the task force trying to get Shepard down. Kearney's only too willing to make this midnight rendezvous, but it looks as if he'll have to fight off a crowd, since a pair of amateur bounty-hunters is determined to scale the roof first, and peerless local burglar Emiliano Del Sol also wants a piece of Shepard, his last arresting officer. Sorting out the traffic is sage Abe Lieberman, who takes time out from the job of separating wife-beating salvationist Frankie Kraylaw from his cowed family for a memorable confrontation above the city. The incongruous mix of taut narrative and shaggy domestic detail keeps this below the level of Lieberman's debut (Lieberman's Folly, 1991), but it's still well worth your time.