Alex is early 20s, still lives with his parents and thinks he should be allowed a bigger role in the family business (drugs, money laundering, trafficking). Dad thinks otherwise. Alex sought counseling to help with his relationship with his father. Alex is Albanian-American, immature, and a bit of a braggart in his attempts to boost his standing with others. During his most recent session. Alex blurts out a question: “Hey Doc. You wanna know who clipped Boris Levenko?”
Levenko was a Ukrainian mob boss in the Brighton Beach area. He and two associates were gunned down in a restaurant earlier in the week. Madrian is bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, of course but the Levenko hit was a broad daylight execution. If the killers aren’t found, this could be the start of another mob war. Should Madrian tell the cops or FBI? More importantly, is Alex going to blab that he’s been seeing a shrink, that he posed that loaded question to the doc?
Figuring that Alex won’t keep his mouth shut, Madrian’s imagination starts to run wild. Is he next to be silenced? How does an amateur keep from being tracked down in Manhattan? What about his family and nieces? His patients? Does he stay in his apartment? He knows enough to know that a digital footprint follows everyone. He does have a racquetball friend whom he has never contacted by email, text, or cell phone. Luck is on his side as this friend and wife are vacationing in the Caribbean and generously offers his brownstone. Get the key from a tenant who lives in the basement apartment, a late 20s librarian named Elena.
Given that he’s now been dumped into a criminal case, he quietly asks his brother-in-law for advice - he’s dealt with the underworld. Surely he’ll have some suggestion. His firm has used what might be called a fixer, guy who goes by the name of Rami. Madrian is told that once he contacts Rami, his immediate future is in Rami’s hands and must do everything Rami says exactly as Rami describes. Get multiple burner phones, absolutely stay off the internet, cancel patient appointments, no contact with family. Stay in that brownstone. Let Rami do what he does and he'll get his life back.
Madrian gets the key from Elena. Big mistake: he eventually tells her why he’s upstairs. They venture out to lay in some food and Bill thinks he notices someone might be following him. Over the next couple days, they stick close in her flat and (as you might guess) start to get close. Meanwhile, the Albanians are getting closer, and he still hasn’t heard from Rami.
Think of this book as a cross between The Sopranos (a mobster seeing a shrink) and Three Days of the Condor (the Robert Redford movie where he’s on run from a hired hitman and takes up with a photographer to hide at her place). The story is told almost entirely from Bill Madrian’s perspective where Rubinstein delivers generous doses of suspicion, paranoia, fear, lunacy, madness, depression, and impending insanity descending on Bill. Rubinstein presents a fast based cat-and-mouse chase in and around NYC. Kept me riveted to my couch and I’m sure you will be too.
Rubinstein, a psychiatrist to boot, is a much-published author of fiction and non-fiction.
He has 8 fiction books, mostly featuring physicians/lawyers (but I’d not call
any a ‘legal thriller’), all published by Oceanview. You’ll find quite several
Oceanview books (Rubinstein included) reviewed by the boys here at MRB and I’d be hard pressed to say
any weren’t solid winners. Oceanview knows how to pick its authors.
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance reviewer copy. Anticipated publication date is 7 May 2024.
East Coast Don
Sopranos + 6 Days of the Condor
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