Book Reviews

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Best-selling crime-fiction author Joseph McNamara has produced another blockbuster with his new novel, Love and Death in Silicon Valley. In a style similar to and as riveting as the works of famed crime novelists Elmore Leonard and Michael Connelly, the book depicts the ugly underbelly of drug gang and Mexican cartel violence in the iconic capital of American high-tech — Silicon Valley, California. Drive-by-shootings and political and police corruption typical of the genre are especially vivid in the hands of this cop’s cop. As one of New York’s Finest, McNamara, who hails from a family of policemen, began walking a beat in Harlem in the 1960’s and went on to become a distinguished police chief (in Kansas City and San Jose).

“Love and Death in Silicon Valley” is a real page-turner, but it is far more than escapist entertainment. McNamara explores important themes found in law enforcement and in society at large. Perhaps reflecting that he holds a PhD from Harvard and for more than 20 years has been a scholar at Stanford University‘s Hoover Institution, he weaves these issues seamlessly into his novels.