Publisher's Weekly Review
Though less experimental than his debut thriller, Impulse (1993), which featured three narrative voices, Weaver's second novel is every bit as gripping, a fast-paced, brutal and kinky tale that mixes crime and political intrigue with aplomb. Rising Manhattan artist Gianni Garetsky, 38, is drawn back into the American and Sicilian underworld of his youth when he's strong-armed by two men who claim to be FBI agents but who begin to torture him to reveal the whereabouts of his boyhood pal, Vittorio Battaglia, a minor mobster whom Gianni hasn't seen in 20 years and has presumed dead. Killing his two accosters, Gianni, who's soon joined by Vittorio's ex-lover, the beautiful and equally dangerous Mary Yung, moves between Europe and the States as his hunt for Vittorio and his race to save his own skin quickly involves a small child and other innocent victims, a world-class contract assassin and possibly the balances of political power in the U.S. and the world. Enhanced by strong, sinewy writing, numerous plot twists and a potent melding of sex and violence, this expertly wrought novel proves that Weaver knows what most thriller fans wantand can deliver it in spades. Audio rights to Time Warner AudioBooks; major ad/ promo. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
From Weaver (Impulse, 1993), an extraordinarily complicated and largely successful thriller so laceratingly tough that the ink it's printed with might as well be distilled testosterone. When renowned painter and former goombah Gianni Garetsky is drawn into a high-level FBI plot to snuff his old art-school buddy, Vittorio Battaglia--who has severed his Mafia ties and become a CIA assassin--what can he do but team up with slutty femme fatale Mary Yung, Vittorio's old flame, to rescue Vittorio and his entire family from a vindictive passel of uglies directed by a mob godfather and the US attorney general? It takes Gianni and Vittorio a while to reunite, during which time Gianni and Mary get busy between the sheets (though her motives for the horizontal bop are vastly less noble than his) and Vittorio wastes a Middle Eastern terrorist along with his entourage of bodyguards. Once Gianni finally manages to locate Vittorio (living in Italy under a fake identity), it isn't long before libertine Attorney General Henry Durning and Boss of Bosses Carlo Donatti, who have an unholy pact, send wave after wave of unlucky gangsters after the dynamic duo. Vittorio's wife was once Henry's main squeeze, but after an ill-fated, incriminating tryst, the AG arranged with the Don to have her killed--by Vittorio, who instead spirited her away to a new life. Unfortunately, the couple's placid existence is disrupted when the Italian mob nabs Vittorio's son and later his wife, holding them as bait to draw Vittorio and Gianni into a series of ambushes. Throughout, Weaver practices a kind of art brut writing (``He kissed her and felt drunk on her taste'') that, despite its galloping misogyny, rings true for his double-butch heroes. If you can't find something to savor in this one, better forget how to read.
Library Journal Review
Weaver's debut thriller, Impulse, was "a first-rate novel" (LJ 6/15/94) that sold more than 40,000 hardcover copies. Deceptions follows an innocent woman as she flees a corrupt U.S. attorney general who would like to see her dead. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
