Onion Street

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A Moe Prager MysteryIt's 1967 and Moe Prager is wandering aimlessly through his college career and his life. All that changes when his girlfriend Mindy is viciously beaten into a coma and left to die on the snow-covered streets of Brooklyn. Suddenly, Moe has purpose. He is determined to find out who's done this to Mindy and why. But Mindy is not the only person in Moe's life who's in danger. Someone is also trying to kill his best and oldest friend, Bobby Friedman.Things get really strange when Moe enlists the aid of Lids, a half-cracked genius drug pusher from the old neighborhood. Lids hooks Moe up with his first solid information. Problem is, the info seems to take Moe in five directions at once and leads to more questions than answers. How is a bitter old camp survivor connected to the dead man in the apartment above his fixit shop, or to the OD-ed junkie found on the boardwalk in Coney Island? What could an underground radical group have to do with the local Mafioso capo? And where do Mindy and Bobby fit into any of this?Moe will risk everything to find the answers. He will travel from the pot-holed pavement of Brighton Beach to the Pocono Mountains to the runways at Kennedy Airport. But no matter how far he goes or how fast he gets there, all roads lead to Onion Street.From BooklistStarred Review Coleman’s latest—a prequel to the award-winning Moe Prager series—is a slam-dunk recommendation for readers drawn to smart, gritty crime fiction with label-defying characters. Onion Street chronicles Moe’s introduction to crime solving, showing him emerging from aimlessness and barreling toward purpose as his intuition for connecting crime dots is awakened. A Brooklyn College student in tumultuous 1967, Moe hasn’t become entangled in the radical movements sweeping campuses (mostly because he’s apathetic), but there’s no exemption from danger when chants give way to violence. After Moe’s activist girlfriend, Mindy, is found severely beaten, he has reason to doubt that the attack is a simple mugging. The night before, Moe ignored Mindy’s warning that he should avoid his best friend, Bobby, and they narrowly missed being hit by a rampaging Cadillac. Bobby’s been secretive lately, especially since his own girlfriend’s suspicious death, but when Bobby denies the events are connected, Moe knows he’s lying. Too curious to resist investigating, Moe is soon poking ata beehive of radical politics, drugs, thugs, cops, and Mob heavies. Exposing a well-loved character’s backstory can be risky, but Coleman manages the trick just fine, with setting and character nicely balancing plot and action. --Christine Tran Review“The bones of this story is your typical noir, though Coleman, the master of the twist, never lets the story stray into formula. This story is very organic, and several details resonated with me. Freed from the constraints of a series, Coleman has written what is probably his best novel yet.” --Edged in Blu“A satisfying addition to the series, demonstrating Coleman's trademark humor, twisty plotting, well-developed characters, and an evocative and authentic portrait of the author's beloved Brooklyn. For those who have not yet discovered the series, Onion Street is an excellent place to start.” --Reviewing the Evidence“Very entertaining company on the beach before the summer slips away.” --Penthouse