Book Review: Midnight City

Book Review: 'Midnight City' by Robert Tine

 3 / 5 Stars

 

'Midnight City' (284 pp.) was published by Signet in December, 1987. The cover artist is uncredited. During the 1980s and 1990s author Tine (1954 - 2022) wrote novels for various franchises ('The Outrider'), and novelizations of feature films ('Universal Soldier,' 'Forever Young,' 'Demolition Man').

 

'Midnight' is set in New York City, circa 2030. The Big Apple is more hectic and more crowded than ever, operating on a 24-hour cycle to accommodate all the activities and commerce unfolding in its five boroughs. Skyways 90 feet high struggle to handle all the traffic. Pimps, muggers, rapists, thieves, and murderers are as plentiful as in our own day, and the city police department has created a new unit, the 'Rovers,' to handle the most pressing and politically charged crime cases. The Rovers aren't particularly well liked by the regular police force, being seen as elitist meddlers.

 

As the novel opens a beat cop is murdered in gruesome fashion. Such a crime must forcibly be addressed, and NYPD headquarters orders Herman Symankowicz, the senior Rover commander, to apprehend the killer. Symankowicz assembles a team of three Rovers: Jake Sullivan, Jerry Walker, and Vic Borelli, to investigate the murder.

 

Lead character Sullivan is your traditional world-weary cop, but he's also very bright, very savvy about the way things work on the alleys and streets of the city, and very dedicated to his job. He's not not overly surprised when the investigation reveals the deceased police had a number of 'excessive use of force' complaints. Thus, there is no shortage of perps who might be seeking payback.

 

As the novel progresses things get worse, rather than better, and the political pressure to solve the crime only increases. But Jake Sullivan has an idea about how to use the technology at the disposal of the NYPD, to learn some things that the Department wants kept secret..... 

 

'Midnight City' is first and foremost a police procedural. Author Tine deploys the standard-issue hardboiled prose, and although he thankfully avoids stuffing similes and metaphors into the narrative, he does have a skill with acidic, laugh-out-loud wordplay: 

 

They found Gerry Geronimo backstage at the Erotiko. He was a grimy little man and, given his lack of personal hygiene, was quite at home in the nasty-smelling lighting booth of the club. He was sitting back in his rickety chair, his feet on the control board, drinking a half-liter can of Budweiser and reading a copy of Twat magazine. 

He looked out directly onto the little stage of the theater where a woman dressed in a dog collar - only a dog collar - as being led around by a black guy who had her leash in his bony hand. He dragged her over to one of the elderly patrons and she took a fifty-dollar bill and commenced giving the guy a blow job.

 

The denouement relies on a rather contrived plot development involving an elderly mafioso, but the reveal of the murderer was a genuine surprise; author Tine keeps the reader guessing til the ending page, which is in the novel's favor.

 

'Midnight' is not a melding of cyberpunk and noir in the manner of other titles from the late 80s and early 90s, like Richard Paul Russo's 'Carlucci' novels, or George Alec Effinger's 'Marid Audran' novels. The novel's sci-fi content is mild; a GPS system, as envisaged in 1987, plays a key role in the investigative process, and an NYPD hovercraft comes in handy when seeking perps among the shadier venues of the city. 

 

Readers who like police procedurals may want to give 'Midnight City' a look, but it's probably not going to appeal very much to those interested in early cyberpunk.