American Quartet
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REVIEW BY GREGORY HARRIS
Washington, D.C., is unique among American cites in part because of its role as the nation's capital. As the center of the Federal government, the city is funded from the Federal treasury and not the coffers of any state. This situation has led to political tension wholly apart from the debates that ring through the halls of Congress; the city administration complains about benign neglect as it struggles to deal with the crime and urban decay that plague many urban centers. Warren Adler chose this complex backdrop as the setting for his intriguing mystery, American Quartet. The tensions of race, local politics and conflict within branches of government are never far from the core of Adler's story, which opens with a young cop tasked with tracking down the perpetrator of a seemingly random killing in one of the capital's museums. Summoned to the scene of the crime is rookie cop Fiona FitzGerald and her partner, an aging cop riding out the time until his retirement. Their investigation of the shooting is complicated not only by jurisdictional conflicts but by the directive of their captain, who is under pressure to catch the killer to protect Washington's tourist industry. But despite the case's high-profile nature, their investigation turns up no leads. If the story sounds vaguely familiar it's because American Quartet, the first in a series of Fiona FitzGerald whodunits, was originally published in 1981. The thriller, which was selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best crime novels of the year, is part of the complete catalog of Warren Adler works (The War of the Roses, Random Hearts) now available in e-book format on his new Web site. Quartet thrusts Fiona into the racially charged world of the D.C. police department and the city in general. Adler pulls no punches in describing the tension among the officers, especially between Fiona and her new partner Jefferson -- a swaggering, profane black man with a reputation for viciousness. Equally unflinching is the portrayal of the racism ingrained in Fiona's family and many of the book's characters, whether overt or subtle, urban or patrician. Fiona soon learns, though, that Jefferson's image is a deliberate projection, a result of strategy as much as anger and pride. To Adler's credit, he never resorts to a hackneyed reconciliation among these disparate characters, but allows them to develop a professional relationship and still maintain their pride and differences. Just as the reader is sharing Fiona's frustration with her dead-end investigation, Adler reveals the killer's identity. The unmasking transforms his work from a conventional tale of police investigation into a battle of wits with a psychotic killer. American Quartet cleverly mixes the elements of detective fiction with historical and political thrillers to come up with an exciting and satisfying reading experience. Readers will enjoy sharing his heroine's discovery and the development of her professional abilities and intuition as much as her unraveling of the few clues the killer leaves in his wake. Gregory Harris is a writer and editor living in Indianapolis.
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