Laws of Annihilation

October 23, 2023
La Salle captures the racial tensions of contemporary New York City in his gripping third thriller featuring FBI agent Janet Maclin and NYPD officers Phee Freeman and Quincy Cavanaugh (after 2023’s Laws of Wrath). Maclin, who had hopes of becoming the Bureau’s first female director, learns from her oncologist that she has, at most, four months to live. Her first instinct is to visit her close friends Freeman and Cavanaugh, but before she can tell them the news, the officers receive word that Reform rabbis Israel and David Abramovitz have been found dead in their Manhattan synagogue with their hands and feet severed. The twin brothers recently attempted to cool down tensions between New York City’s Hasidic and Black populations following a Black teenager’s death at the hands of Hasids. The Abramovitzes were also vocal supporters of the city’s Black mayor, Rocky Henderson, who demands justice by any means necessary. Maclin, Freeman, and Cavanaugh launch a tense inquiry that La Salle, as is his trademark, takes pains to make plausible (as Maclin notes: “Good police work... was monotonous and nitpicking”). Thankfully, La Salle manages to get the details right while keeping his foot on the gas and making space to explore his leads’ inner lives. This series has yet to stumble. Agent: Rockelle Henderson, Rock Inked.