The Isaac Sidel Novels

11 primary works

Blue Eyes

by Jerome Charyn

Published 1 January 1977

A cop and his disgraced mentor attempt to bust a white slavery ringBefore Isaac Sidel adopts him, Manfred Coen is a mutt. A kid from the Bronx, he joins the police academy after his father’s suicide leaves him directionless, and is trudging along like any other cadet when first deputy Sidel, the commissioner’s right hand man, comes looking for a young cop with blue eyes to infiltrate a ring of Polish smugglers. He chooses Coen, and asks the cadet to join his department after he finishes the academy. Working under Sidel means fast promotions, plush assignments, and, when a corruption scandal topples his mentor, the resentment of every rank-and-file detective on the force. Now just an ordinary cop, Coen hears word that his old mentor has a line on a human trafficking operation. When Sidel’s attempt at infiltration fails, he sends in Coen. For Coen, it’s a shot to prove himself and redeem his mentor, but it could cost the blue-eyed cop his life.

Marilyn the Wild

by Jerome Charyn

Published 1 May 1981

Set in a shocking New York underworld populated by a constellation of punks, low lifes, thugs, nymphs, vice lords and bag men, Marilyn The Wild is the first book in Jerome Charyn's classic Isaac Quartet. Issac Sidel is the toughest, hardest, most incorruptible police officer in the business, and he runs the meanest kingdom in New York City - the Lower East Side. But his biggest problem is his daughter - Marilyn the Wild. A tough-talking Bronx-Manhattan girl - twice-divorced by twenty five - Marilyn has a taste for the wrong men. And Manfred 'Blue Eyes' Coen, Isaac Sidel's handsome sidekick and spy, is just that sort of man. So when a vindictive teenage gang makes Marilyn the target in a crazed vendetta against her father, the stakes are high for both Isaac and Blue Eyes.

The Education of Patrick Silver

by Jerome Charyn

Published 30 March 1992

In a shocking New York underworld populated by a constellation of punks, low lifes, thugs, nymphs, vice lords and bag men, Patrick Silver is an eccentric giant. An ex-cop, he once served under the now disgraced First Deputy Isaac Sidel. But now his life has taken a peculiar turn. He's been hired as a bodyguard to Jeronimo Guzmann, the most fiendish of a family of Peruvian pimps who have been plaguing Isaac Sidel. Isaac's out for revenge, and he's sure that Patrick can help him find the 'lipstick freak', a perverted murderer who has been stalking the New York skyline, painting the faces of little boys before he kills them. But when Patrick becomes distracted by the irresistible Odile Guzmann, helping out Isaac is the last thing on his mind.

Secret Isaac

by Jerome Charyn

Published 30 March 1992

Isaac Sidel, the ex-First Deputy of New York City, is at his lowest ebb. A wounded romantic, he now lives a lonely existence at a grimy hotel on West Forty-seventh street, lamenting the death of Blue Eyes Coen, his most favoured cop, and the waywardness of his daughter, Marilyn the Wild. Still blighted by the Guzmanns, the ruthless criminal family, and ravaged with bitterness and guilt, Isaac yet falls in love with Annie, a beguiling Irish prostitute with a dark secret. Secret Isaac trails our forlorn hero from New York's political halls to the depths of Dublin's Joycean underworld as, on her behalf, he pursues a terrible and exacting revenge.

The Good Policeman

by Jerome Charyn

Published 1 July 1990

In this fifth story to feature Isaac Sidel, he has just become Commissioner of the New York police force. He's at odds with the Mayor, the Cardinal, and a group of antiquarian baseball addicts with a strange interest in crime. Also a former lover returns, with the Mafia on her trail.

Maria's Girls

by Jerome Charyn

Published 1 May 1992

Police Detective Caroll Brent works for Commissioner Isaac Sidel, an avowed murderer who narrowly failed to off a lethal monster named Sal Rubino. Rubino woos Caroll?s wife with wondrous hand-wrought rings and bracelets: he woos Caroll with the promise of Isaac?s death...

Montezuma's Man

by Jerome Charyn

Published 1 August 1993

Little Angel Street

by Jerome Charyn

Published 1 November 1994

El Bronx

by Jerome Charyn

Published 1 February 1997

Citizen Sidel

by Jerome Charyn

Published 1 January 1999

Under the Eye of God

by Jerome Charyn

Published 30 October 2012

After decades of madness in the Bronx, Isaac Sidel visits the craziest state in the country
Isaac Sidel is too popular to be America's vice president. Once the New York Police Department commissioner, he became the most beloved mayor in the city's history-famous for his refusal to surrender his Glock, and for his habit of disappearing for months at a time to fight crime at street level. So when baseball czar J. Michael Storm asks Sidel to join him on the election's Democratic ticket, the two wild men romp to an unprecedented landslide. But as the president-elect's mandate goes off the rails-threatened by corruption, sex, and God knows what else-he tires of being overshadowed by Sidel, and dispatches him to a place from which tough politicians seldom return: Texas. In the Lone Star state, Sidel confronts rogue astrologers, accusations of pedophilia, and a dimwitted assassin who doesn't know when to take an easy shot. If this Bronx bomber doesn't watch his step, he risks making vice-presidential history by getting killed on the job.