Destroying Angel by Richard Paul Russo

Finished reading Destroying Angel by Richard Paul Russo. I read Ship of Fools last year and wasn't horribly impressed. Decent book, but not worth the awards it won. Angel is a near future mystery. Set in San Francisco in the next century, it follows Tanner as he helps the police catch a serial killer who chains his victims together and leaves them dangling in bodies of water. Tanner is a former officer himself who quit after his partner was shot and killed. Again, nothing horribly impressive about the book, but there were a bunch of elements I really liked. First, he avoided a cliche many do not. He foreshadows death for some of the characters, and they actually die. Tanner does not miraculously arrive in time to save them. Some of the settins are pretty decent too. I like the idea of the Tenderloin as an area unto itself within San Francisco, walled off from the rest of the city. However, the concept of The Core, an even rougher area within the Tenderloin that is much like the Twilight Zone, bothered me. Supposedly a 4 block area, I find it hard to believe that such a small place can differ as much as described from it's surroundings. And have such a clear demarcation between the two as well. A decent read. I'll read the next two in the series (I have the 3 in 1 edition), but probably not right away.