Amazon.com Review

The dynamic crime-solving duo of Butch Karp and his feisty wife, Marlene Ciampi, is back, and this time they have an extra set of brains: their 7-year-old daughter, Lucy. Falsely Accused is

Falsely Accused is more than just a suspenseful thriller--it is a fascinating exploration of legal and courtroom procedures, recounted in scrupulous detail. Fans of Butch and Marlene (and Lucy!) will not be disappointed.

From Publishers Weekly

Followers of Tanenbaum's intelligent, 1970s-set series (Corruption of Blood, etc.) featuring married lawyers Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi will find that the author's punchy style perfectly suits his latest three-ring crime spectacle. After years on New York City payrolls, both attorneys have quit for private work?Karp for a top firm and Marlene, after keeping house for a while, to start a detective agency with her burnt-out ex-cop pal Harry Bello. For his first case, Karp represents Manhattan's Chief Medical Examiner as he sues to get his job back plus damages after he has been fired by the mayor working in tandem with Karp's old nemesis, D.A. Sanford Bloom. Marlene finds her new challenge in the schoolyard where her seven-year-old daughter, Lucy, plays. When a young mother ask Marlene's help in stopping a stalker, Marlene's sleuthing leads her to a Lower East Side women's shelter where Lucy befriends two traumatized children and insists that her mother help them. The plot curve, unsurprisingly to those who know the series, is tossed by regal but ever-difficult journalist Ariadne Stupenagel, Marlene's pushy college buddy, who's digging into the suspicious suicides?while in police custody?of three gypsy cabbies. What she unearths is improbably connected to both Marlene's and Karp's cases. The links among these three very dissimilar narrative threads strains credulity, but Tanenbaum's talent is large, and so are his characters. These assets, along with a shot of genuine compassion for the troubles of children, enable him to just pull this one off. If readers won't quite believe the shockingly unconventional resolution, they'll still be affected by it, leaving them eager to know where this heroic family of crimefighters goes from here.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

At the center of Tanenbaum's scattershot, complicated 17th entry in his Butch Karp/Marlene Ciampi series (_Hoax_, etc_.)_ is a decade-old rape perpetrated by four young men beneath the Coney Island Pier. The so-called Coney Island Four were eventually caught and sent to prison, but an oily, race-baiting lawyer, Hugh Louis, has managed to free them and is now filing a $250 million lawsuit against the city of New York. Karp, Manhattan's district attorney, smells corrupt cooperation between Brooklyn's political establishment and the lawyer, and at the request of the mayor, he steps in to defend the city. Though Tanenbaum effectively brings readers inside the world of crime, politics and the law, he bloats the thriller with distracting subplots. In a boilerplate Tanenbaum twist, a terrorist cell led by a brutal Iraqi takes over an abandoned subway tunnel and takes a member of Karp's family hostage as part of its plan to blow up Times Square on New Year's Eve. Meanwhile, Karp's wife, Ciampi, works to exonerate a college professor accused of rape at the same time she pitches in on the Coney Island Four case. It's too bad Tanenbaum has overstuffed his latest thriller: somewhere beneath the layers of fat there's a svelte, snappy story. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From

Courtroom maneuvering (as well as the detective work behind it) and family relationships have always been hallmarks of Tanenbaum's Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi series. Thanks mostly to Marlene, the series has also included its share of heroics, moral pondering, and violence-laced action. This time, however, the brutality seems gratuitous, and the plot turns on coincidence. As usual, several cases are entwined: Karp, now acting district attorney, and his family and friends unmask legal, law-enforcement, and moral corruption as they separately and together face a terrorist threat, marshal a defense against four young black men claiming they were wrongly convicted, and review a rape charge brought by a student against her professor. Unfortunately, the courtroom scenes yield few surprises, and some of the out-of-court action scenes (especially when Marlene, a sharpshooter cowboy, a Native American cop, and a Vietnamese gang boss turn themselves into commandos for a face-off with the terrorists) tip over into the ridiculous. That said, it's tough not to root for characters you've grown to know and like, even if they aren't at their best. Tanenbaum sets up the next installment on the last page of this one; let's hope it's more thoughtfully conceived. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Publishers Weekly

Tanenbaum--currently a candidate for Los Angeles D.A.--cooks up a shocking and credible addition to his N.Y.C.-based Butch Karp crime series. More than a million copies of Tanenbaum's books are in print, and his next, Reversible Error , will be a Dutton April release. Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This cynical, fast-moving novel, the third in the Butch Karp series, concerns the workings of the judicial system in the Big City. The neat plot combines Satanism, pedophilia, Mafiosi, good-looking cops, corrupt judges, sociopaths, a pregnant one-eyed assistant district attorney who roller skates, and a love story, into something special. Tanenbaum, coauthor of two nonfiction crime books as well as De praved Indifference ( LJ 7/89) and No Lesser Plea (Watts, 1987), is also a former assistant district attorney and chief of homicide. As timely as tomorrow's nightly news, but not for the squeamish.
- Lynn Thompson, Ozark Regional Lib., Ironton, Mo.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Amazon.com Review

Robert K. Tanenbaum spent the first part of his career as an assistant district attorney in New York City's homicide bureau, and he has been artfully recapturing that period in his terrific books about D.A. Butch Karp and his wife, private detective Marlene Ciampi. "He still had his hair at thirty-seven, and he kept it shorter than was fashionable then, at the start of the eighties," Tanenbaum writes of Butch at the start of Irresistible Impulse. It is one of the few places in the book where the exact time is spelled out; otherwise, Tanenbaum relies on an ambiance of attitudes and characters to root the action in its period. A tough Vietnamese immigrant who goes to work for Marlene's new detective agency is a fascinating creation, and the two main stories--Karp's difficulties with a high-profile case that could stir up racial strife, and Marlene's attempts to protect a prominent musician from a stalker--are perfectly set and brilliantly executed. Other books in this fine series available in paperback include

From Library Journal

Legal eagles Butch Carp and Marlene Ciampi, fresh from their courtroom adventure in the best-selling Falsely Accused, here find their jobs and lives threatened.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

An Armenian radical is accused of murdering a Turkish diplomat as a New York City homicide chief and his wife try to find the real culprits.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

During World War I, 1.5 million Armenians were annihilated by the Turks. Turkey has never acknowledged this genocide, and history lightly dances around it. Herein lies the premise of Justice Denied. The tale begins with the assassination of a Turkish diplomat-apparently committed by Armenian terrorists-and the prompt arrest of a suspect. Enter Butch Karp, assistant district attorney and head of the homicide bureau. Karp and wife Marlene, also an assistant D.A., make a most dynamic duo. Among the individual threads: she goes to a reception and receives a lecture on art theft; he discovers a million dollars in a safe deposit box; he gets a lesson on Eastern European history and the buying and selling of national treasures. These threads are tightly woven together into a highly satisfying tale ultimately related to the novel's opening events. Larger public libraries may want more than one copy.
--Dawn L. Anderson, North Richland Hills P.L., Tex.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

Tanenbaum's run-of-the-mill 19th thriller to feature Manhattan district attorney Butch Karp and his wife, Marlene Ciampi, picks up where 2006's Counterplay left off. Karp is recovering at Beth Israel Hospital, after being shot by his rival and fellow prosecutor, Rachel Rachman, who was in turn gunned down by Ciampi. Various members of the Karp family have helped thwart terrorist outrages aimed at the pope. The mastermind behind the plot against the pope, mayoral candidate and murderer Andrew Kane, is believed dead, but Karp suspects that someone at a high level in U.S. security circles fed Kane key information and remains poised to do the country further harm. Once again, Karp's plucky daughter, Lucy, becomes involved in a plot so improbable that the author has Ciampi comparing it with the far-fetched conspiracies of The Da Vinci Code. Series fans will be pleased, but those seeking sophisticated political suspense set in a post-9/11 New York City should look elsewhere. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"The best legal thrillers have an authentic voice, heartstopping action, and a pace that doesn't let you quit till you've turned the last page. Robert K. Tanenbaum is guilty as charged on all three counts, and delivered another great crime novel with Malice." -- Linda Fairstein, bestselling author of Bad Blood

"_Malice_ is what we have come to expect from Robert K. Tanenbaum, the master of the legal thriller. It's another riveting crime story leading up to a terrific courtroom drama, the kind TV should have, but rarely if ever does."-- Vincent Bugliosi, former Los Angeles district attorney and author of Helter Skelter and the acclaimed And the Sea Will Tell

"In Malice, a unique cadre of crime fighters confronts its greatest battle yet -- to protect the streets of New York City from an international nightmare. Tanenbaum pens an extraordinary tale of crime, terror, and betrayal that illuminates the dark threats we face today while reminding us that Americanjustice, fortified by brave men and women, can still protect all we hold dear." -- Catherine Crier, bestselling author of A Deadly Game

From Publishers Weekly

Ex-New York DA Tanenbaum's gritty thrillers take full advantage of his own experience in the judicial system. Here he brings back NYC assistant DAs Butch Karp and Marlene Ciampi, last seen in No Lesser Plea , for a fifth go-round. Now married, they are expecting their first child. While Marlene is on pregnancy leave, Butch gets into a hassle with his superior and resigns from the DA's office. Unofficially, then, they become embroiled in a murder case in Queens, the shooting of a pro basketball star in a car whose glove compartment contains a large package of high-grade cocaine. The tangled case brings them into contact with Mafia hitmen and loan sharks, and includes revelations of point-shaving, arson-for-hire and a political corruption scheme that involves numerous high-ranking New York pols. In order to break the case, Karp ends up as the 12th man on a pro basketball team, a return to the injury-shortened athletic dreams of his college days, while Marlene trundles off to see a Jamaican druglord in Brooklyn. Tanenbaum knows his criminal procedure cold and is briskly efficient in propelling his complicated plot. Though the novel is generally laced with a nervy, street-smart cynicism, there are some absurdities: the idea of a 30-something lawyer on a pro hoops team is nothing less than preposterous, and it takes an equally unlikely coincidence to bring Marlene into the mortal danger that Tanenbaum concocts for her. These cavils aside, this is a consistently entertaining thriller. Major ad/promo.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Compelling intrigue, action, and dialogue.” —_Kirkus Reviews_

“Witty, highly intricate big-city police thriller. ”  —_USA Today_

From Publishers Weekly

Tanenbaum has written an exceptionally good contemporary novel about the criminal justice system. Set in New York during the early '70s, the book focuses on young, idealistic assistant D.A. Butch Karp and his conflicts with both a single criminal and the politicized bureaucracy that seemingly makes a travesty of justice. In his first murder case, Karp is prosecuting Mandeville Louis, a brilliant killer who has feigned insanity, hoping to protect himself from trial until the court system eventually forgets about him. But the determined Karp refuses to let Louis's ruse succeed. While Karp is trying to put Louis behind bars, he is also caught up in the politics of the D.A.'s office as petty bureaucrats struggle for control of their turf and power. An attorney himself, Tanenbaum has infused this book with a strong collection of characters, a raunchy energy that crackles in the out-of-office lawyer talk and a basic sense of outrage at a system that is failing miserably. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Mandeville Louis is the self-proclaimed most successful armed robber in New York City, as well as a vicious killer. Roger Karp is a dedicated assistant district attorney. Louis, arrested for a dual murder, tries to avoid prosecution by feigning insanity. Karp does his best to block this abuse of the criminal justice system. As it explores Karp's private life and colorful co-workers, this fascinating, realistic novel addresses several current legal issues: plea bargaining, overcrowded dockets, and the insanity defense. Tanenbaum, co-author of Badge of the Assassin, has worked in the New York County District Attorney's Office. Recommended for large fiction collections. A. J. Wright, Anesthesiology Dept., Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.