J.J. has surrounded himself with an interesting, eclectic group of people, from Manny Santos, the tough talking building superintendent, to Dr. Boris Koulomzin, J.J.’s partner, a PhD who rarely ventures out of doors during the day, to Janet Fein, a streetwise, smart talking social services worker. A ninety-something year old Russian woman who outlived three husbands, and her crusty old Irish maid, who both live in J.J.’s building on the Far Upper West Side of New York, round out J.J.’s world.

On J.J.’s thirty-ninth birthday, Janet comes to him with a request. One of her charges, Ruby Brice, has been murdered and neither Janet nor Ruby’s precocious young son Clifford are satisfied with the arrest the NYPD has made. Janet feels that Ruby was doing everything in her power to change her life for her little boy and that her murder was not just another prostitute’s murder. Clifford agrees that Ruby was killed for something she knew.

J.J. agrees to take the case and Boris makes a rare daylight appearance to meet the boy near his old neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn. Boris is immediately taken with Clifford and the two develop an excellent relationship. J.J. pursues another angle, attempting to get hired at a manufacturing plant Clifford says his mother would mention from time to time. While there, J.J. gets caught up in something else dangerous and begins double duty, working undercover for the owner of the plant as well as for the memory of Ruby Brice.

Broken Machines is a tough, streetwise private eye novel that has a softer side. Dennis Leahey has introduced a group of interesting characters, each tough in their own way, but each with a very interesting story that allows a very different side of them to show through. Several of the characters’ stories are told in some detail, but there is plenty left to explore, especially with J.J., in the future.

J.J. obtains most of his information easily, and is even able to insinuate himself into the manufacturing plant with relative ease. It is once inside that he must use his wits, not only to solve Ruby’s murder, but to help the immigrants working in the plant. Leahey uses his New York setting to a good advantage, even to a fistfight in a traffic jam over a cross-town sports rivalry. The dialogue matches the fast pace of the book without being sparse. Broken Machines is an excellent debut with a likable cast of characters and a great old-fashioned PI flavor with a Spanish olive.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry