23 Shades of Black

A mystery in the noir tradition (think Hammett's Sam Spade or Chandler's Philip Marlowe), Wishnia's hero (heroine really) is NYPD patrolwoman Filomena Buscarsela, a recent emigre from Ecuador trying to make a go of it on the mean streets of Manhattan circa the Reagan era. Taking its title from a painting by a down-and-out SoHo artist whose murder sets the plot in gear, the book places an updated female Marlowe smack in the middle of the seedy and angry street scene of the 1980's. The author never lets us forget the political arguments of the day, giving us a sarcastic and sometimes self-destructive (but generally sympathetic) uniformed policewoman contending against the callous bigotry of her fellow officers (she's a Latina in a white boy's club, after all) and the larger insults of an American system she apparently disdains (despite the fact that she came here from her native Ecuador of her own volition -- go figure). A highly educated college girl, Buscarsela has found work as a New York City cop and aspires to pull herself out of the muck and mire of the uniformed force by making detective -- a rank she believes she is being denied because of her gender and outspokenness. Amidst an array of assignments, Buscarsela stumbles onto an accidental death she recognizes as murder before anyone else does and bull-headedly begins her own off-hours investigation. Lurching through a series of mind numbing encounters with punk rockers and various coke sniffing, heroin shooting denizens of the still dilapidated failed New York City of the eighties, our detective wannabe gets herself drugged, drunk and nearly killed by a silencer-wielding assassin in an alcohol-befogged subway encounter, more dreamlike than real in its evocation of the dark, fuzzily-recalled drunken and drugged out escapades of Chandler's Marlowe. Wishnia's own writing is sharp and evocative of the sights and sounds of the era though Officer Buscarsela often sounds more like an embittered middle class white college kid, enthralled with leftish cant, than the street smart Latina, trying to make a go of it in a rough world, we're given to believe she is. When not dousing herself with all sorts of mind numbing concoctions to forget her mistakes and disappointments, she's trying to nail an evil corporation that seems to own half the world and to be poisoning the rest. Buscarsela's antagonist, when it isn't just about everyone she runs into -- from her fellow cops to the Reagan administration heartlessly denying funds for afterschool programs to sustain its 'cynical' war on drugs - seems to be nothing less than the capitalist system itself, personified by greedy, self-indulgent yuppies and their overweight corporate tycoon bosses preying on the rest of us. It's a somewhat simplistic world view, to be sure, though one which Wishnia uses effectively to drive an interesting tale that evokes the seamy underside of 1980's New York while serving as backdrop for some interesting and colorful exis

New York police officer Filomena "Fil" Buscarsela isn't your average New York cop. She's from a remote mountain village in Ecuador and her brother had been killed by agents of the government, so one would think she'd have a huge distrust of police and all things governmental, but not so. She and her partner are sent to the scene of a toxic leak at a food stamp center. Several people are sick and when one is killed at a construction site later on, which is owned by the same company, Fil starts to become suspicious, especially since the dead guy was an artist named Wilson McCullough who had been making noises about the insecticide making factory next door to the food stamp center, claiming they were killing the environment. The insecticide people apologize for the accident, but Fil doesn't really think they're all that sorry. Especially after McCullogh's autopsy reveals the levels of lead in his system were far too high to have been the results of any accident. And while she's trying to put he case together she also has to deal with her other cases, one involving illegal immigrants, another involving a rape and still another involving a drug bust. She has a full plate, but she busts her tail against long odds as she wants to make detective. And she likes the idea of justice, so she investigates the toxic spill on her own, taking us along while she works the investigation which takes her from the clubs of the Lower East side to the boardrooms of corporate execs. My best description of Mr. Wishnia's writing would be wisecracking noir at its finest. I just loved it and I will be looking for more of Fil's stories. If you like thrillers, mysteries, hard-boiled noir or any combination of them then you're going to love this book.

This title involves an American-Ecuador police officer in NYC named Filomena Buscarsela. My reading experience is Fil grows on you as a character. She's a tough, tenacious, and independent lady who aspires to become a detective. There's enough police work given here to make this a semi-procedural. Fil's unsettled past in Ecuador is given via her long, frequent musings. The pace picks up near the end with a satisfying climax. I'll read more in the series to follow her interesting character development.

Overall, it was a pretty good read. The really fresh thing about this book was that it featured a tough Latina. I happen to like tough Latina's. The book starts off really good. The middle is really good too. However, in the end when Filomena meets face to face with the bad guy I really, really, really wanted Filomena to....Oh, well I guess you have to read the book!

I really enjoyed this book. It was a great change of pace after reading books by Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, Linda Barnes, etc. The main character's is tough and knows how to hold her own with the male Police officers.This is a great read after reading a lot of (although enjoyable) "formula" books. Her world is not pretty and she exhibits many of the character flaws of someone constantly dealing with the "scum of the earth", as well as the pressures of being a minority in a man's world. Her toughness reminds me of the first time I read V.I. Warshawski.I liked the grittyness and unexpected references to world events and history. I can't wait to read the next book!