Review of THE CONFIDENTIAL

There are cop stories and then there are New York cop stories. THE CONFIDENTIAL is a 1973-era cop story based in New York by an ex-New York cop, turned lawyer, and every line evokes images of Robert DeNiro or Al Pacino in top form. Jack Bray knows what he's talking about.
One of the most thankless assignments of any undercover agent is being a part of a sting operation against their own comrades. Dante Falconieri is one of the best undercover guys in the business, but the sting has gone wrong. His career is in limbo. His trophy girlfriend adds to his cynicism. In a rare moment of guy-camaraderie--especially for a loner like Dante--he lets his disillusionment find words and he himself will become the target of a sting operation to test his integrity. Or is it entrapment?
There are stories within stories and author Bray, the former cop and attorney, has the eye and the ear to make it all fit together. It moves fast, and you can visualize it like a movie full of the usual goodfellas and badfellas and a few so-sofellas. There is the cop sting that backfires, the DA's office full of corruption, the overseas drug cartel that gets so fouled up that it will crumble the entire task force, the stings-on-loan against the judges, lawyers and who knows who else-and don't forget the gal on the side.
Poor Dante. He's a man with few friends other than his Italian father--in Italy no less--an ex-cop himself who will come to New York to be "Papa". No wonder Dante is jaded and in desperate need for some time off--hopefully with the trophy gal.
Cop-story lovers will gravitate to THE CONFIDENTIAL like a duck to water. It has everything you would expect: plenty of rough-em-up, more than a handful of rogue cops and other law enforcement types on the take, two--or is it three--murders, a mysterious-but distinctive hit man who doesn't understand the concept of "blend in", a suitcase of marked bills, a complicated foreign drug cartel, drive-by shootings, a clean-up crew of feds, an addict witness who escapes from the Marshals, and the beautiful "cherchez la femme". There are enough twists and turns to make a reader wonder if a) there is anyone like you and b) more importantly, anyone you can trust. Except maybe Papa. The old adage is true: it takes one to know one, and the author certainly has his era, his eye and ear right. He is probably a little kinder to the language than most modern cop writers, but then again, forty years ago, perhaps all of us were a little gentler with our speech. But the descriptions are spot-on, and the type of cases and particularly the overlapping cases, seem to ring true. THE CONFIDENTIAL is a book you don't just read. You can see it and hear it as if it were a movie. THE CONFIDENTIAL by John A Bray available at all online booksellers, both in paper and as an e-book.