Another Tough and Tasty Cookie From Ira Berkowitz

Those of us whose mystery tastes were bred and buttered by Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, John D. McDonald, Lawrence Block and Ross Macdonald will be pleased to hear that Ira Berkowitz, their legitimate child, has a fine new Jackson Steeg book out, a handsome trade paperback called SINNERS' BALL. After surviving, in Old Flame, a bomb blast at a saloon called Feeney's (imagine Matt Scudder's favorite hangouts rolled into one), Steeg, an ex-NYPD homicide cop who has been pensioned off because of a problem with Johnny Walker Black Label and a missing lung, can still find the strength to battle bad guys, even if he has to sit down and breathe hard afterwards.

Jake's biggest problem is his brother, Dave, an amoral mobster who lost a hand in the blast, brought on by his kidnapping of the son of a ruthless Israeli gangster trying to muscle in on his terrority. Now Dave is in even more trouble: When a warehouse he owns goes up in flames and kills three squatters and two fire fighters, an additional six bodies, sexually mutilated and placed in packing crates, turn up in the basement. Dave is an easy target for an indictment, and when Steeg tries to locate the real culprit, he steps on the wrong toes and finds himself ducking bullets.

Berkowitz is the best thing to happen to tough American crime fiction
since Jim Fusilli (A Well-Known Secret; Closing Time), who seems to be writing for younger audiences these days. So if a blast from the past is what you crave to get you through the holidays, Sinners' Ball is your noir of the year.