Authorized Personnel Only

Chicago cop Suze Figueroa and her partner Norm Bennis exchange witty repartee in their squad car, but Figueroa longs to be a detective. Her chance arrives when the detective squad is felled by a bad dinner date. She and Bennis take on a serial killer while balancing their other cases and working within the confines of the city budget and their own time limitations. Figueroa and Bennis are characters transported from a British cozy to the mean streets of Chicago, given some absolutely delightful dialogue and a fine-tuned sense of justice, and set loose to wreak havoc on the bad guys. She and Bennis come down to the wire in solving one crime, while another is taking place right in Figueroa's home. D'Amato takes a solid plot, compelling characters, and an exciting location, and sprinkles in some terrifying antagonists to make "Authorized Personnel Only" a great read.

Chicago police officer Suze Figueroa and her partner Norm Bennis know how ugly the city streets can become. The duo deals with crime, mostly petty in nature, on a daily basis. However, Suze and Norm soon find themselves involved in an even uglier scenario when much of the Second City's detective force call in sick with food poisoning following the retirement dinner of the chief detective.Suze and Norm are temporally promoted to help work the crisis. The brass assigns them two nasty cases: a serial killer and a pediophile. The murderer uses the homeless as his prey while the molester relishes attacking pre-teen aged girls.Even more now than when she patrolled, Suze sees her home as her castle of normalcy, a place for her to relax and regain her soul. Unbeknownst to the dedicated cop is that the pediophile has moved into her home living in her attic while learning more about his adversary with a plan to punish her for disturbing one of his felonies.The subplots starring a serial killer and a pediophile sound trite as they have been overkilled over the past few years. However, in the hands of the award winning Barbara D'Amato both themes seem so fresh readers will believe AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY has introduced new concepts. The story line is a combination police procedural and thriller, but what makes it so good is the depth to the characters, especially Suze, whose professional and personal lives are opened up like a book for the reader to peruse and understand. Rarely do police novels attain that level of excellence as this tale does.Harriet Klausner

Don't read this book when you're home alone at night. It's scary. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY maintains suspense throughout, while being very realistic, in that the police officers are dealing with several cases as once, as real police do. The author skillfully moves between three different cases that come officer Suze Figueroa's way. The perpertator in one case has invaded Suze's own home, living in the attic of the big old wooden house, watching the family's every move from the back staircase and creeping out at night to steal food and torment Suze's paralyzed sister.This book has every indication of becoming a smash motion picture. Remember, Eric told you so. Meanwhile, why wait for the movie to come out? I loved the author's previous KILLER.APP. This new book is fabulous!

Barbara D'Amato's HELP ME PLEASE and KILLER.APP were two utterly un-put-downable suspense thrillers. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY isn't nearly as exciting, but it's interesting as a "week in the life of a cop." Suze Figueroa and her partner Bennis are two patrol officers who are given the chance to become acting detectives when many of Chicago's finest are struck down by food poisoning following a banquet. They are faced with solving the murder of several homeless people, despite the fact that the department doesn't want to grant them resources due to the low status of the victims. At the same time, a child molester has moved into the attic of the home Suze shares with her sister's family, and is waiting for the right moment to attack Suze's young niece. Will Suze discover the intruder before it's too late?I missed the heart-pounding suspense of D'Amato's previous Chicago cop books, but I did enjoy AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY as a police procedural. The author has obviously done a tremendous amount of research and I learned a lot. As a longtime fan, I must say that any D'Amato is worth reading -- she's a solid, reliably good crime writer.