Will Monroe, a rookie journalist for The New York Times, is trying his best to impress his superiors and his colleagues. His first assignment, “your garden variety gangland killing” will not make the front page unless he makes it into a bigger story.
Will digs deeper in an effort to find something interesting, something newsworthy, and something that will get Will’s name on the front page of The New York Times. Will Monroe gets his front page, but at what cost?
Howard Macrae, the person who is now the corpse lying, covered in a blanket, on the dirty streets of Manhattan is not what he seems. To everyone who was acquainted with him, he was a pimp, an exploiter and a user of women. But to one woman, perhaps the one who knew him better than anyone else, he was a saviour, a righteous man.
Will Monroe is intrigued by Howard Macrae’s story, but does not think much more of it. Howard Macrae was only his means of getting that front-page slot. His next assignment, the death of Pat Baxter, considered by most to be a Unabomber, seems similar to the previous case; Pat Baxter, a man who had a dangerous and militant reputation was not what most people perceived him to be. He was another righteous man.
Will Monroe stumbles across more and more of these ‘Righteous Men’ and becomes buried deeper into a world that is dangerous for him and all who care for him.
The Righteous Men is a wonderfully fast-paced tale set, in a well-researched religious backdrop. Every character that emerges is pivotal to the plot and their own predicaments usually only add to what turns out to be, for Will Monroe, a race against time to solve the clues and save the person most dear to his heart.
Of course, books of this type will inevitably be compared to The Da Vinci Code (I am sure The Righteous Men will do as much for the Hassidic religion as its counterpart has done for Opus Dei). But The Righteous Men stands on its own as a very enjoyable thriller that may not have you guessing to the very end, but will certainly let you to enjoy the ride.
