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A funny thing happened on the way to the publisher: Stephen J. Cannell may have written the book of his career with WHITE SISTER. One does not say this lightly. Despite all those pretenders to the throne, Cannell is the REAL King of All Media, having scripted many hit movies, created enough television series to have a cable network going (you're welcome, Viacom), and for the past decade or so written a number of bestsellers, including his venerable Shane Scully series. His latest novel featuring the LAPD detective is over the top. And that's a good thing.
WHITE SISTER starts out innocuously enough, with Scully and his wife Alexa (who is head of the Los Angeles Police Department Detective Services Group) getting ready to leave work. Alexa promises to see Scully at home within a couple of hours; all too soon, however, she goes among the missing. Her automobile is discovered with David Slade, a fellow police officer, handcuffed and brutally murdered in the front seat. Naturally, Alexa is a suspect in his death. Scully, against orders, begins to investigate both the murder and his wife's fate, a course of action that rapidly escalates out of control.
Things become worse as Scully follows a trail that causes him to be embroiled in the violent world of the rap music industry, where millions of dollars ride on the capricious whim of the artist and deadly violence awaits just outside of a limousine window. Chief among the principals is Stacy, the wife of rap mogul Louis Maluga. She's a white woman who was raised in the predominantly black community of Compton and has adopted the walk, talk and attitude of the gangster rap scene as her own. As Scully learns all too soon, Stacy has much to do with what has occurred, including the whereabouts of Alexa. As Scully races to sort out what has happened and clear Alexa's reputation as well as his own, he finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into a morass of trouble and pain, one from which it is doubtful he will ever recover --- if, that is, he can.
Cannell takes all sorts of chances in WHITE SISTER, transporting Scully to situations that most readers never thought they'd see, while at the same time keeping the street lingo and the action real. A climactic finish in the Las Vegas desert and a quieter but no less important one in an extended care facility contribute to making WHITE SISTER not only Cannell's most memorable work but also one of the more exceptional books in a year full of them.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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