Title: Deadly Lullaby
Author: Robert McClure
Genre: Thriller / Suspense
Age Group: Adult (18+)
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
For readers of Harlan Coben and Robert Crais, Robert McClure’s rollicking crime novel of family and felony takes readers on a relentless thrill ride through the L.A. underworld.
Fresh off a nine-year stint in San Quentin, career hitman Babe Crucci plans to finally go straight and enjoy all life has to offer—after he pulls one or two more jobs to shore up his retirement fund. More than anything, Babe is dead set on making up for lost time with his estranged son, Leo, who just so happens to be a rising star in the LAPD.The road to reconciliation starts with tickets to a Dodgers game. But first, Leo needs a little help settling a beef over some gambling debts owed to a local mobster. This kind of thing is child’s play for Babe–until a sudden twist in the negotiations leads to a string of corpses and a titanic power shift in gangland politics. With the sins of his father piling up and dragging him down, Leo throws himself into the investigation of a young prostitute’s murder, a case that makes him some unlikely friends—and some brutally unpredictable enemies.
Caught up in a clash of crime lords, weaving past thugs with flamethrowers who expend lives like pocket change, Babe and Leo have one last chance to face the ghosts of their past—if they want to live long enough to see their future.
In Deadly Lullaby, a father and son have a lot of issues to go through before they can make amends. Babe Crucci has just been released from prison. He used to be a professional hitman, but now he just wants to make up with his estranged son, Leo. Unfortunately that doesn’t go as easily as he hoped, especially not since Leo is a LAPD detective and doesn’t want anything to do with his father’s past.
Leo isn’t all rainbows and sunshine either, though. He has some gambling debts, and his father decides to help him out. Unfortunately what should be child’s play turns into a nightmare, and Babe’s sins come back to haunt him. At the same time, Leo dives into the investigation of a protestitute’s murder, which ends up giving him some unlikely friends…and some horrible enemies.
I really felt for Babe and Leo. Their relationship was so strained, and it was easy to see why but I still hoped they could make it work somehow. I don’t usually enjoy thrillers that focus on gang-related crime and crime lords that much, but I did enjoy this book. The writing is excellent, and the family relationship offers an interesting angle.
I would recommend this to everyone who enjoyed a good thriller and doesn’t mind some violence.
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