Detective novel would make great film

US - Dick Wolf is the perfect name for the hero of a series of detective novels.

But the real-life Wolf is an innovative award-winning American TV writer-producer best known for creating the Law & Order franchise, whose plots are mostly based on current headlines.

Wolf never does anything for a short period of time: The original Law & Order series ran for a primetime record of 20 seasons, spawning five spin-offs.

So, it shouldn't be surprising that Wolf's first novel is intended to be the beginning of a series of novels featuring grizzled New York Police Department (NYPD) detective Jeremy Fisk.

The Intercept: A Jeremy Fisk Novel published by HarperCollins introduces Fisk, an elite investigator with the NYPD's counter-terrorist intelligence division.

After taking down a would-be bomber in the heart of Times Square in 2009, Fisk is convinced that it is just the beginning of their problems.

After Osama bin Laden is killed in 2011, he is sent to Germany where he joins an extensive joint-agency forensic examination of the evidence found at the scene in Abbottabad, Afghanistan.

A message is found on a flash drive: "They must be made to believe that we repeat ourselves out of a desperation to act."

Years later, New York is preparing for the inauguration of the One World Trade Center on Independence Day, when six passengers and the crew of a Swedish airliner take down a would-be hijacker and become celebrities.

Tasked to take a second look at the incident, Fisk feels that the hijacking isn't what it seems. Meanwhile, someone is gathering material in preparation for exactly what the detective is worried about.

Wolf has a lot of experience creating compelling investigators, from Mariska Hargitay's stalwart Olivia Benson (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) to Vincent D'Onofrio's complicated Robert Goren (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), so it is a bit of a surprise that, while driven and vulnerable, Fisk is somewhat of a cipher who is really more of a walking plot advancer.

That being said, The Intercept is written very much like a TV show - Fisk briskly follows clue after clue to a tense ending; there's just enough violence, just enough mystery.

That makes the book really easy to read and a well-written thriller; it's an effective page-turner and would make for a great movie.

The second Fisk novel, The Execution, is due in January next year. Perhaps readers will learn more about the series' protagonist then but, in the meantime, The Intercept is a promising introduction to detective Jeremy Fisk, who, hopefully, will become a name every bit as interesting as Dick Wolf.

myp@sph.com.sg

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