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Summary
Summary
Driving along the freeway, LAPD Sergeant Shane Scully glances over and sees at the wheel of a neighboring car his oldest friend and LAPD colleague, Jody Dean. Why is Scully so surprised? Because it's been two years since Jody committed suicide. Now Shane is confronted by the bizarre truth: Jody and five other cops thought to be dead are anything but. Originally sent deep undercover to bust an extremely violent international criminal network, they've gone bad. Calling themselves the Vikings, they are LAPD's worst nightmare: dangerous rogue cops who know how the system works.
Full of the high-wire suspense and wonderful characters that made The Tin Collectors a bestseller, The Viking Funeral brings Shane Scully back into action, pitting him against his closest childhood friend, and endangering the life of the woman he loves.
Author Notes
Stephen J. Cannell was born in Los Angeles, California on February 5, 1941. He was dyslexic and struggled through school. After graduating from the University of Oregon, he drove a truck for his father's home-decorating business and wrote TV scripts at night and on the weekends. His first writing successes were story ideas sold to Mission Impossible. Four years later, he sold a script for It Takes a Thief. In 1966 a script he submitted for Adam 12 so impressed the producers at Universal that they offered him the position of head writer. At Universal he wrote and helped create several TV shows including The Rockford Files, Baretta, and Baa Baa Black Sheep.
He started his own production company in 1979, generating The A-Team, Riptide, Hunter, and 21 Jump Street. Other credits include Wiseguy, Renegade, and Silk Stalkings. He has scripted over 1,500 TV episodes and created or co-created over 40 programs.
His first novel, The Plan, was published in 1995. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 15 novels including Final Victim, King Con, and the Shane Scully series. He died of complications associated with melanoma on September 30, 2010 at the age of 69.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Readers willing to check their disbelief at the door will enjoy this latest over-the-top thriller by Cannell (The Tin Collectors). It's been three years since LAPD cop Shane Scully's best friend and fellow cop Jody Dean blew his brains out so what does it mean when Shane spots Jody driving in the next lane on the freeway? Shane's lover, Alexa Hamilton, herself a star in the LAPD, is skeptical of the sighting partly because Shane is undergoing psychiatric treatment until they find her boss dead in a faked suicide with a strange tattoo on his ankle. The tattoo is the symbol used by the Vikings, a group of brutal rogue cops in Jody's unit who were kicked off the force. A two-way radio at Sheperd's home leads Shane to Jody's hiding place, and it turns out he's involved in a lot more than just a rogue gang. Shane stumbles into a huge money-laundering conspiracy involving the cops, Colombian drug cartels and Big Tobacco. But in order to win Jody's trust and save his own life, Shane must betray Alexa. The action intensifies as the rogues, with Shane along with them undercover, face peril trying to keep ahead of murderous drug lords while the bodies pile up. Solid plotting with nail-biting suspense and multiple surprises keep the reader guessing and sweating right up to the cinematic ending. As the creator of such TV series as The Rockford Files and The A Team, Cannell has a knack for character and a bent for drama that will satisfy even the most jaded thrill lover. 10-city author tour. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Los Angeles police detective Shane Scully catches a glimpse of his childhood buddy and former partner Jody Dean cruising the freeway. No big deal, except that Dean committed suicide two years earlier in the LAPD parking lot. Scully's fiance, Alexa, also a police officer, assures him he was mistaken, but Scully saw the recognition in the driver's eyes. He becomes even more obsessed when Jody's former commanding officer, just entering retirement, is found murdered. Scully doesn't believe in coincidence and continues to dig until he makes contact. The suicide was a charade; Jody used it to go deep undercover. His assignment was to track the drug money being laundered through some of the country's most respected multinational corporations. Jody insinuated himself into the money trail, but the lure of a $100 million fortune and a serious lack of conscience shattered his link to law enforcement. Shane exploits their history together and ostensibly joins Jody on the other side of the law. Shane's dilemma becomes saving Jody while simultaneously bringing the money launderers to justice. Cannell, winner of four Emmy awards and the author of last year's best-selling Scully caper The Tin Collectors [BKL N 15 00], has penned another winner. Scully is a likable protagonist who struggles with his personal life while staying a step ahead of a disturbed, dangerous adversary. A top-notch thriller with more than a little heart. --Wes Lukowsky
Kirkus Review
By-the-numbers thriller about a money-laundering scam spearheaded by a giant tobacco company. Not a surprise in the carload. It begins when LAPD Detective Shane Scully (The Tin Collectors, 2001, etc.), driving the freeway, spots his oldest friend at the wheel of a nearby car. During all the years of their growing up, Jody Dean meant the world to Shane. It was Jody who found a way to instill at least a modicum of self-confidence into Shane, the abandoned, uncared-for orphan boy. And it was Jody's family that became Shane's, supplying the kind of security he so badly needed. Under ordinary circumstances, then, Shane would have been overjoyed at the unlooked-for sighting. The hitch here is that his friend is supposed to dead. Three years ago, Jody, an LAPD Special Investigations cop, had shot himself in a police department parking lot. True enough, it was a suicide Shane had always found hard to believe: "He wasn't the kind of guy who eats his gun," he tells Alexa Hamilton, his sweetheart and fellow officer. Alexa, however, clings to the conventional view, the corpse having been unhesitatingly identified not only by the widow Dean, but also by a blue-ribbon array of LAPD bigwigs. And yet, as events soon prove, Jody does indeed live and breathe. What's more, he's gone thoroughly bad, heading up a quintet of other rogue cops. Rapacious, remorseless-and ankle-tattooed-these so-called "Vikings" have, in effect, sold themselves to the ill-intentioned All-American Tobacco Company. Drugs (of course), abetted by a devilishly clever approach to money-laundering, are the linchpins of an operation Jody hopes will make him fabulously rich. But here he reckons without his old bud, who, though battered, bruised, and bloodied, manages to make Jody's resurrection a short-lived thing. In these further adventures of the hopelessly derivative Sergeant Scully, more is worse. Author tour
Library Journal Review
Sergeant Shane Scully is back from the best-selling The Tin Collection with a big problem: he spots an old friend and colleague who supposedly committed suicide. It seems that there's a bunch of cops running around who went deep undercover and promptly went bad. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
