Absolute Rage (A Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi Thriller)

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

Book Overview

As the city sizzles under the early summer sun, New York chief assistant D.A. Butch Karp and his family are happily vacationing on Long Island's north shore. Their reverie changes to horror when they... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743403452
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 1.2" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

Absolutely fascinating

This is the first Tanenbaum book I have read, and halfway through found myself wishing that the author had written a series with the same main characters. To my delight, I discovered that there are 14 books in the Karp/Cianni series, and tonight I ordered the first 5 - I am looking forward to reading all of them! What fun to discover a "new" author!

Another first-class atom bomb for Tanenbaum

I seriously doubt if Tanenbaum could write a book that wasn't an absolutely I-couldn't-put-the-book-down read. This is one of his best. It starts calmly enough, and gradually buillds up to a brain bashing crescendo as it zeroes in on some genuine hillbilly killers who hold an entire region of West Virginia in terror and who have involved Butch and his family by killing a friend.Lucy is by now a young woman and happily is more deeply involved in the plot than she has been in quite some time. Needless to say, altho' Marlene starts out as a calm, civilized type, she reverts easily to the bull-bashing physical type that seems to be ingrained in her psyche. No fan of Tanenbaum's will be dissatisfied with this book. Unlike many authors who write successive series, he doesn't spend page after page telling about the past or describing the personalities of his characters. He lets that information develop as part of the story, which is a real relief.About the only thing I could find to strongly disagree with is Tanenbaum's tendency to make Butch overly idealistic. I think Butch's final assessment of the situation in West Virginia is far closer to reasonable than his puritanical view of how it was achieved.I can't wait for another in this series.

This Year's Winner from Tanenbaum!

Robert Tanenbaum's newest offering in the Butch Karp / Marlene Ciampi series is Absolute Rage, a book that drags the Karps out of New York City and into the lovely and dangerous West Virginia mountains. It's not Tanenbaum's best in the series, but it is a great, rollicking read that will satisfy Karpophiles everywhere.Marlene Ciampi, we learn, has once again given up the gun. She has taken instead to raising and training Neopolitan Mastiffs on a farm on Long Island. Her financial windfall from her previous employment at a high-profile security company affords her the luxury of doing pretty much what she darn well pleases. This pleasant bucolic life comes to an abrupt end when she meets her summer neighbors, the Heeneys, from West Virginia. Husband "Red" Heeney is a union organizer who seeks to unseat the current corrupt union president and return some of the power to West Virginia's poorest and least-empowered workers, the coal miners. Red, despite his noble efforts on the part of exploited workers, is a drinker, a braggart, and a brawler who seems to bring misery to his family. Nevertheless, when Red, his wife Rose, and their youngest child Lizzie are murdered in their West Virginia home, Marlene is moved to help the two remaining Heeney sons find the killers and bring them to justice.Butch Karp finds himself in the middle of West Virginia violence by way of a friend and former professor who persuades Butch to take the job of outside prosecutor in the Heeney murders. The West Virginia governor would like to "clean up Dodge," but he knows that the town's corruption runs deeper than the coal in the mountains and will take an outside force to effect any real change. Karp takes the job to escape a frustrating political situation in the city. In typical fashion, Marlene's approach to rooting out and punishing the killers runs counter to Butch's ingrained belief in the rule of law.Readers who find Lucy Karp, the Karp's young language prodigy, an engaging and interesting character will enjoy her acquisition of a boyfriend. Lucy's insistence that she is too ugly and too peculiar to find love melts away under the attentions of Dan Heeney, Red's youngest son. Lucy discovers that she is quite possibly every bit as alluring as her mother was and still is. As she steps further from childhood, Lucy learns not only about her own heart but that of her lifelong friend Tran. The Vietnamese gangster has long been Lucy's friend and teacher, but she learns, this time out, that despite his outward veneer of civility and humanity, he is a cold killer underneath. The loss of this fiction, combined with the near-loss of brother Zik, shake Lucy's faith in God to its foundation.Lucy's younger brothers, twins Zik and Zak, are also interwoven in this story. Tanenbaum has chosen to flesh out their characters rather than leave them, as he once described them, as "indistinguishable larvae." Zik, the gentle Giancarlo, is an artist and a humorist, while Zak seem

A FINELY PACED READING

Voice artist Lee Sellars gives a finely paced reading to the latest thriller from New York times best selling author Robert. K. Tannenbaum. In this, the fourteenth Karp family tale, the big city swelters in summer heat while the Karps are enjoying a leisurely respite at their Long Island farmhouse. Wife Marlene is training guard dogs, while Karp, New York Country's assistant district attorney, is asked to serve as special prosecutor in a West Virginia murder case. Actually, the victims were summer friends of the Karps: a coal mine union leader, his wife, and their daughter. Karp finds more than killing in the little coal mining town - corruption and black crimes abound. Marlene soon joins her spouse, adding fuel to the already glowing fire of imminent death. Daughter Lucy plays a larger than usual part in this story, while the ten-year-old twins provide mostly background. Fans of Tannenbaum will find much to their liking in "Absolute Rage," and, undoubtedly, eagerly await the next one from this prolific author. - Gail Cooke

Top-Notch Tanenbaum

"Absolute Rage" is the latest entry in the long-running Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi series about two lawyers who marry and have kids, but who otherwise lead unusual lives. Butch works as the chief assistant District Attorney in New York City, where he encounters endless bureaucracy and constant political pressure from his superiors. Marlene runs a business training guard dogs, and she is determined to avoid the violence that marked the earlier part of her life. She has always had a penchant for trying to right wrongs, which more than once has placed her family in the line of fire. However, Marlene has decided that the satisfaction and excitement of bringing bad guys to justice is not worth the risk to herself and her loved ones.Alas, resolutions are made to be broken. Marlene and Butch meet the Heeny family on Long Island. The Heeneys include Rose, her volatile husband, Red, and their three children. Red Heeney is a firebrand union agitator who is trying to clean up the corruption in the coal-mining town of McCullensburg, West Virginia. However, Red's outspoken stand against corruption has tragic repercussions. Before long, Dan Heeney, Red's son, calls on Marlene to come to West Virginia to help him. Butch also gets involved in the ugly situation in West Virginia when the governor makes him a special prosecutor. It is Butch's job to bring justice to this lawless town. Tanenbaum's books all have several common threads. The dialogue is hip and saucy, and is often laced with sarcasm and flip humor. The prose is effortless and entertaining, and there is almost no objectionable language or gore. His books usually deal with important social issues. In "Absolute Rage," Tanenbaum's effectively describes how a small town gradually becomes completely corrupt. In McCullensburg, the mining company owns everything, including all of the elected officials.The characters in "Absolute Rage" are, as always, colorful and vivid. One of the most fascinating characters is Butch and Marlene's daughter, Lucy, who has grown up before our eyes. She is now a student in Boston College. Lucy has been a language prodigy for years and, unlike her parents, she is an ardent Catholic. In this novel, she experiences her first romantic encounter. Tanenbaum also brings back the fascinating Tran, a former guerilla fighter from Vietnam who has been a Karp family friend since the early days."Absolute Rage" has a number of predictable elements. As always, Marlene and Lucy are offbeat and unconventional. It is a foregone conclusion that the Karps will be up to their ears in danger before the final page is turned. However, Tanenbaum writes so engagingly and his books have such heart, that most readers will fall in love with the Karps and will root for them to prevail over the forces of evil.