Blood of Paradise

January 22, 2007
Corbett's third novel, a moving if somewhat directionless thriller, is as much a political statement as it is crime fiction. Jude McManus, a young American bodyguard assigned to keep watch over a business executive working for an El Salvador bottling plant, is approached by Bill Malvasio, an old Chicago police partner of McManus's late father, who, along with another cop, was fired from the force for corruption. Malvasio, who fled the U.S. for El Salvador during the scandal, wants to hire McManus to return to Chicago and bring back the third member of the trio. McManus accepts the job because Malvasio's reason seems benevolent—there's a job waiting, and the old partner has fallen on hard times. It's a decision McManus soon regrets. Corbett (Done for a Dime
) spends an inordinate amount of time explaining the wreck that El Salvador has become since the civil war of the 1980s. While interesting in small doses, the sociopolitics detracts from a meandering plot already lacking in suspense and punch.