skinnypenguin's review
4.0
Quite an involved thriller. Jeremy Fisk, an NYPD detective, has his personal information broadcast on the web and some killers from a drug cartel are hunting him. His bank accounts have been drained and he can't stay in his apartment. He confronts a reporter who is interested in releasing more information that a guy has obtained and would put lots of law enforcement people at risk. Then some people are murdered and Fisk is investigating and they find out it is related to the man arrested for obtaining all the confidential information. The killer is using drones. Fisk has the reporter assigned to shadow him and he goes about trying to find the killer.
He ends up becoming involved with the reporter, foiling several attempts on his life, and works on saving the citizens of New York City. Story involves lots of technical details about how law enforcement works in New York City and operations of drones. Describes well how a terrorist can instill panic, how the police go about trying to find the terrorist. Keeps you on the edge of your seat.
He ends up becoming involved with the reporter, foiling several attempts on his life, and works on saving the citizens of New York City. Story involves lots of technical details about how law enforcement works in New York City and operations of drones. Describes well how a terrorist can instill panic, how the police go about trying to find the terrorist. Keeps you on the edge of your seat.
brettt's review
1.0
Jeremy Fisk of the NYPD's Intelligence Division has a little problem -- an immense cache of secret government documents has been leaked online, and since it includes his home address, he's about to become vulnerable to all kinds of nasty folks he's helped put away. All of this happens in the middle of the city being placed under siege by a faceless assassin who wants the leaker freed and will kill one New Yorker a day until that happens. But worst of all? He's been ordered to accept being shadowed by a New York Times reporter.
The Ultimatum is TV producer Dick Wolf's third Jeremy Fisk novel, and it hums along quite nicely using its very interesting threat premise and Wolf's intimate knowledge of his city. Free to weave the locations, sights and sounds of New York into his narrative in ways he couldn't with his Los-Angeles shot Law & Order TV show, Wolf takes full advantage of the chance and gives serious depth to its sense of place. The story itself ticks along smoothly and builds some good suspense in several scenes, even if the romance it features is telegraphed from the title page and he relies on girlfriend-in-danger scenarios not once but twice. The plan to thwart the villain's murderous designs is ingenious and pretty spectacular.
Up until about page 356 (paperback edition), a reader could figure this as the best so far of Wolf's Fisk novels. But Wolf's insertion of a senseless and brutal murder - he adds some detail to maximize manipulative pathos, but the killing itself has less than no point in the story -- sends things straight into Ents-do-Isengard territory. Like a piano in an old Warner Bros. cartoon with a single key wired to explosives, The Ultimatum wrecks pretty much everything with this one wrong note.
Original available here.
The Ultimatum is TV producer Dick Wolf's third Jeremy Fisk novel, and it hums along quite nicely using its very interesting threat premise and Wolf's intimate knowledge of his city. Free to weave the locations, sights and sounds of New York into his narrative in ways he couldn't with his Los-Angeles shot Law & Order TV show, Wolf takes full advantage of the chance and gives serious depth to its sense of place. The story itself ticks along smoothly and builds some good suspense in several scenes, even if the romance it features is telegraphed from the title page and he relies on girlfriend-in-danger scenarios not once but twice. The plan to thwart the villain's murderous designs is ingenious and pretty spectacular.
Up until about page 356 (paperback edition), a reader could figure this as the best so far of Wolf's Fisk novels. But Wolf's insertion of a senseless and brutal murder - he adds some detail to maximize manipulative pathos, but the killing itself has less than no point in the story -- sends things straight into Ents-do-Isengard territory. Like a piano in an old Warner Bros. cartoon with a single key wired to explosives, The Ultimatum wrecks pretty much everything with this one wrong note.
Original available here.
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