Peregrine, which won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1982, is the book that introduced New York City homicide detective Frank Janek. Divorced for a number of years, Janek lives alone and repairs old accordions in his spare time. But most of all, Janek is devoted to his job and gets consumed by this first case which has to be one of the oddest in the history of crime fiction.
The book opens when a reporter for a New York City TV station, Pamela Barrett is struggling to hold on to her job. By chance, she happens to be at the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center when a giant peregrine falcon drops out of the sky and knocks a young female skater to the ice. The bird then slashes the woman's throat and flies off into the sky.
Amidst the panic, Pam notices that some Japanese tourists have been filming the skaters and captured the attack on film. She persuades them to give her the film, races back to the studio and reports the scoop of the year. She does this so successfully that she becomes an overnight sensation, breathlessly reporting to terrified New Yorkers the latest news about the killer bird.
Most people initially assume that the attack was just a bizarre act of nature but then the falcon strikes again, killing another young woman and it now appears that some madman has actually trained this bird to kill human beings and is controlling the bird's action. Pam thus takes a deep dive into the world of falconry, attempting to discover how the bird could be trained to kill a human and, more important, who is responsible for the bird's actions.
Enter Frank Janek, who's in charge of the police investigation of the murders. He too would like to know who trained and is controlling the bird. But Janek and Pam are adversaries in the sense that each wants the other to freely share information, but neither of them wants to do so. Janek wants to solve the crimes; Pam wants to maintain her ratings and build her career. She wants credit for bringing the falconer down.
As the book progresses, we meet the killer and learn a great deal about falconry. The book devolves into a psychological study of all three of the main protagonists, but especially the killer who is seriously weird.
The book has an interesting premise, but forty years after its original publication, it doesn't have the impact that it might have had originally. Or, to be fair, it didn't work for me as well as I might have hoped. The book seemed to get bogged down a bit with all the psychological analysis, and the premise requires perhaps too much a suspension of disbelief. The climax is more than a bit bizarre and left me shaking my head. That said, I enjoyed the character of Frank Janek and so will still go ahead to read the second book in the series.
The book opens when a reporter for a New York City TV station, Pamela Barrett is struggling to hold on to her job. By chance, she happens to be at the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center when a giant peregrine falcon drops out of the sky and knocks a young female skater to the ice. The bird then slashes the woman's throat and flies off into the sky.
Amidst the panic, Pam notices that some Japanese tourists have been filming the skaters and captured the attack on film. She persuades them to give her the film, races back to the studio and reports the scoop of the year. She does this so successfully that she becomes an overnight sensation, breathlessly reporting to terrified New Yorkers the latest news about the killer bird.
Most people initially assume that the attack was just a bizarre act of nature but then the falcon strikes again, killing another young woman and it now appears that some madman has actually trained this bird to kill human beings and is controlling the bird's action. Pam thus takes a deep dive into the world of falconry, attempting to discover how the bird could be trained to kill a human and, more important, who is responsible for the bird's actions.
Enter Frank Janek, who's in charge of the police investigation of the murders. He too would like to know who trained and is controlling the bird. But Janek and Pam are adversaries in the sense that each wants the other to freely share information, but neither of them wants to do so. Janek wants to solve the crimes; Pam wants to maintain her ratings and build her career. She wants credit for bringing the falconer down.
As the book progresses, we meet the killer and learn a great deal about falconry. The book devolves into a psychological study of all three of the main protagonists, but especially the killer who is seriously weird.
The book has an interesting premise, but forty years after its original publication, it doesn't have the impact that it might have had originally. Or, to be fair, it didn't work for me as well as I might have hoped. The book seemed to get bogged down a bit with all the psychological analysis, and the premise requires perhaps too much a suspension of disbelief. The climax is more than a bit bizarre and left me shaking my head. That said, I enjoyed the character of Frank Janek and so will still go ahead to read the second book in the series.