Hot poppies - Reggie Nadelson

A murder in New York's diamond district. A dead Chinese girl with a photograph in her pocket. A plastic bag of irradiated heroin on the mantelpiece in an empty apartment. A millennial fire in a sweatshop in the city's swarming Chinatown. The worst blizzard in New York history. These are the events that conspire to bring ex-cop Artie Cohen out of retirement and back into the obsessive world of murder and politics that nearly killed him in Red Mercury Blues. Hot Poppies is another superbly crafted Artie Cohen thriller, full of crackling dialogue and incorporating all the usual ingredients of corruption, drugs and sex.