Review of Night Life by David C Taylor (2015, Forge)

New York, 1954. Michael Cassidy has returned from the war and become a cop. He has a strong sense of justice and doesn’t mind taking on other corrupt cops, infamously throwing a vice cop beating a prostitute from a third floor window. He’s also independently wealthy through his Broadway producer father, connected via his ‘uncle’ Frank Costello, a mafia boss, and occasionally has second sight, dreaming of events before they happen. On new year’s eve he arrests a thief, but crosses swords with a lawyer from Senator Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunt team, who threatens to make his life hell. The following day he’s assigned to the murder case of Alexander Ingram, a Broadway dancer found dead in his bathroom having been tortured. It seems whoever killed Ingram was after something specific. The FBI want Cassidy and his partner to act on their behalf and as dictated. The pair have no intention of following such orders, however, and try to track down Ingram’s secret and the men he associated with. Those men are murdered in turn and Cassidy is being placed under pressure from the CIA, FBI, the mafia, and another shadowy group . In the meanwhile, McCarthy’s lawyer has decided to target Cassidy’s father for Un-American activities.

Night Life is the first book in the Michael Cassidy series set in 1950s New York. Told in a noir-style, the story has two interwoven threads. The first concerns a murder centring on a blackmail case involving photos of a very senior figure that many organisations would like to get their hands on – FBI, CIA, mafia, and communists. The second relates to a McCarthy witch-hunt against Cassidy’s father, a Broadway producer and Russian immigrant with a murky past. Cassidy has to solve the former to resolve the latter, but it’s far from straightforward when there are so many actors wanting to get their hands on the blackmailer’s damaging snaps and he’s finally found and fallen for the woman of his dreams. Taylor does a good job of introducing a new character and fleshing out his personality and backstory while keeping the tale moving along, and making sure a fairly complex plot is clear to follow. There’s a strong sense of place and time, some good contextual historicisation with respect to McCarthy’s investigations and trials, and the characterisation is well done, including the use of some real-life people from the time. The result is an absorbing and entertaining read.

Lazy Sunday Service

A busy week just passed, with a trip to Cardiff and a load of meetings, capped off with the welcome news that the repeal the 8th referendum was passed. Somewhere along the way I put down William Shaw's The Book of Scars to find at the end of the day I no longer possessed it. After four visits to bookshops in Cardiff and Dublin I've not managed to find a replacement, so I'll have to order another copy from the local bookshop. A little frustrating as I was halfway through.

My posts this week

Review of The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter
Review of Angels in the Moonlight by Caimh McDonnell
It's already tomorrow

It's already tomorrow

‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ Ciara said.

‘She’s the reason I’m here,’ Joanna replied, tugging her friends arm. ‘Her and the tens of thousands who had to travel. For me. For you.’

‘I know, but … it’s too ...’

‘You’ve already cried for Ireland, what’s a few more tears?’

At the foot of Savita’s mural were candles and a mound of flowers.

An old man was stood to one side crying, clutching his grand-daughter’s hand.

‘It still breaks my heart,’ Ciara sobbed.

‘All our hearts.’

The young girl pulled the old man’s arm. ‘Come-on, grandpa, it’s already tomorrow.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter (William Morrow, 2016)

An ex-cop is found murdered at an abandoned construction site. The site is owned by Marcus Rippy, a star basketball player, and has been mothballed during his trial for rape. Now that the case is over and Rippy has been acquitted the development of the complex is about to restart. The ex-cop was linked to Rippy’s sports agency. In the same room as he’s discovered in there is a large quantity of somebody else’s blood. That person appears to be Angie Polaski, another ex-cop with a troubled history. Attending the scene is Detective Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Trent was in charge of the Rippy rape case and Polaski was his ex-wife. He should be nowhere near the case, but despite his new relationship, he has a pathological need to find out what’s happened to his wife.

The Kept Woman is a police procedural thriller set in Atlanta and is the eighth book in the Will Trent series. Trent is a detective with a very troubled history and in this outing that history come to the fore. Trent has just lost a rape trial case against a star basketball player, his marriage to Angie Polaski is over, and he’s now dating Sara Linton, a medical examiner. Polaski though still haunts Will’s life, especially when it turns out that she was present at a murder site – an under-construction nightclub owned by the acquitted basketball player – that contains a dead cop and copious amounts of her blood. Trent is determined to find out what happened, even if it means placing his present relationship under immense strain. Slaughter tells the story in two halves. It starts with the brutal attack at an abandoned night club development and the police and GBI being called to the scene and the start of the investigation. Then at a key reveal it shifts back to a week before the attack and details that lead up to it. The pace and tension is kept high throughout as the case quickly unfolds. While the story is tense and gripping, it is a mess of coincidence and plot devices, with every character being related or previously intimately connected to each other, and the tale itself relies on the reader suspending disbelief and just riding along on the melodrama and action. And there is a lot of melodrama. The result is a story that is entertaining in a police action movie kind of way, but fails to ring true.

Review of Angels in the Moonlight by Caimh McDonnell (McFori Ink, 2018)

1999, Dublin. A well-organised and ruthless gang are committing armed robbery. The police have a good idea as to who is behind the clever heists, but they are smart and their local neighbourhood protects them given they had rid the area of drug dealers. Detective Bunny McGarry and his partner Detective Sergeant Tim ‘Gringo’ Spain are drafted in to help with the investigation. Both have their own problems – Spain has separated from his wife and has a gambling habit, McGarry has fallen for an American jazz singer who is living with an order of nuns, on the run from a crime committed in New York. As the cat and mouse game between the police and gang intensifies, so does McGarry’s ardour for Simone. The path to justice and love though are never smooth, especially when Bunny McGarry, a man who rubs both his colleagues and criminals up the wrong way, is involved. 
 
Angels in the Moonlight is a prequel to McDonnell’s ‘Dublin trilogy’ focusing on a key case and romance of Detective Bunny McGarry, a Cork man with a passion for hurling who is serving in Dublin. McGarry is a delightful character, a man with a distain for authority and a trouble-maker, but fiercely loyal to friends, committed to upholding justice, and with a soft, romantic side that he keeps well hidden. McDonnell exposes these traits through the investigation of an armed gang of robbers and his wooing of an American jazz singer hiding in Dublin. As with the Dublin trilogy, the story moves at a relatively quick clip, has a number of well-penned, colourful characters, and has a streak of dark humour running throughout with a number of belly-laugh moments. The scenes with the order of nuns and the hurling matches were a delight, with some wonderfully witty dialogue. The two parallel storylines were interesting, though both were well signposted and fairly predictable. Overall, a fun and funny read.

Lazy Sunday Service

A couple of weeks ago I started a short run of reading books that had race as a central theme. They proved to be emotive and often difficult set of stories, with their casual and often times brutal racism. One of the attractions of crime fiction is their social commentary and how they create reflection on persistent injustices and these books certainly cast a fascinating light on past and contemporary racial divides and discrimination: Paris Trout by Pete Dexter; Dark Town by Thomas Mullen; White Butterfly by Walter Mosley; A Negro and an Ofay by Danny Gardner; Slumberland by Paul Beatty; and Capture by Roger Smith.


My posts this week
Review of Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
Review of The Bombers and The Bombed by Richard Overy
Watching the wedding

Watching the wedding

‘Will you be watching the wedding then?’

‘What wedding?’

‘Harry and Meghan.’

‘Is that the racy couple at number thirty two?’

Mac took a gulp of his Guinness.

‘Are you taking the piss? The royal wedding. Prince Harry and his American girlfriend.’

‘I thought he was a chip off the old block.’

‘Charles? He’s been married twice.’

‘No, the other one. Captain whatever-his-name was.’

‘Steady on.’

‘What? That apple didn’t fall far from the tree.’

‘That apple is sixth in line to the throne.’

‘He would be round ours as well if he wasn’t out of bed by eight o’clock.’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of Paris Trout by Pete Dexter (Penguin, 1988)

Cotton Point, Georgia, just after the Second World War. Paris Trout and his hired muscle shoots a black woman and a fourteen year old girl. The latter dies a few days later. Trout admits the killing, but argues that he had every right as he was collecting a debt from her brother and she was fleeing instead of cooperating. His colleague, a former policeman, argues she was armed. Trout is well-known in the town, running the local store and also an informal bank for black families. In a place where racism is endemic and Jim Crow antics common he is bemused as to why such a fuss is being made over the death of a black girl and cannot understand why the case is heading for court. As the case unfolds he becomes increasingly paranoid, accusing his wife of poisoning him, and his lawyer of conducting a shoddy defence. Used to getting his way, he’s not going to let the law and shifting social relations stand in his way.

Paris Trout is social drama built around the murder of a black girl in a small Georgia town just after the end of the Second World War. The hook is that Trout, a white shopkeeper and loan shark, does not deny the killing and has no sense of guilt or shame. To him the girl’s death is entirely her own fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and acting in a way to provoke his violence. He is genuinely mystified as to why the case is heading to court and fully expects proceedings to be halted or to win. Dexter tells the tale from a handful of perspectives: Paris Trout, Rosie Sayers (the girl that is killed), Harry Seagraves (Trout’s lawyer), Hanna Trout (the wife), and Carl Bonner (Hanna’s lawyer). Seagraves, Hanna and Bonner are all repulsed by Trout but are ensnared in his evolving madness. Trout is a hideous figure, a caricature of Jim Crow, and Dexter uses the shifting perceptions of Trout to explore the inherent racism and social norms of a society divided by race and class. There are no great surprises or twists, rather the story acts as a morality play, sliding to a somewhat inevitable end. It’s an interesting, if somewhat flat read, that peters out a bit of the end. More problematically, the black family disappears entirely, as does the black community of Cotton Point, from the trial onwards – it’s telling and troubling omission; written out of the fiction of a terrible crime committed against them. 

Review of The Bombers and The Bombed by Richard Overy (Penguin, 2014)

Prior to the Second World War there was a believe, especially amongst the air forces of the various belligerents, that bombing could determine the outcome of wars, curtailing land campaigns. The subtitle of this book is ‘Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940-1945’ and it focuses on the Western allies attempts to test this hypothesis, charting the bombing campaigns over Germany in particular, its Axis partners, and occupied countries such as France and the Netherlands from the perspective of the bombers and those who were bombed. To a large degree it is academic in its approach, setting out a rather dry and dispassionate account based on the historical archive of documentary evidence, presenting events at a distance and with memos and statistics rather than personalities and experiences. Overy argues that the bombing campaign not only did not achieve its aims, but cost more in lives and material than it gained in strategic and tactical advances. That is not to say that the bombing campaign had no effect – it certainly led to much destruction, lives lost, disruption, and some influence on the distribution of resources, but rather than collapsing morale it often reinforced resolve and it had little impact on industrial production until near the war’s end.  While the book provides a broad overview of the politics and practice of bombing, from both Allied and Axis perspective, it gives little sense of the key people involved who are rather one-dimensional, or the experiences of those undertaking bombing raids or being bombed. Moreover, it provides very little coverage of the Eastern front and that of the third major allied party, Russia. I was expecting the book to circle round to a wider systemic analysis of the effects and ethics of bombing at the conclusion, but that didn’t materialise. Overall, an interesting read concerning the politics and effects of a bombing campaign.

Lazy Sunday Service

And so ends a long week of events - two workshops and a three day conference. The workshops were the final events of the Programmable City project, which I've been running for the past five years. It was great to get all the present and past members of the team together for an event in the Mansion House in Dublin. The Conference of Irish Geographers is always a nice event, catching up with colleagues and hearing what they are working on. Caimh McDonnell's Angels in the Moonlight is now helping me detox from all the learning and socialising with some hearty belly laughs.


My posts this week
Integrity

Integrity

Logan ended the call. He wasn’t sure what was worse – Cronin’s intimidation, his guilt, or that he was going to lose the case. He was defending a man who had raped and murdered an elderly woman.

The door cracked open. ‘Charlie?’

‘Sometimes I hate this job.’

‘But only sometimes.’

She ghosted into the room.

‘I’m defending a monster; if I win it’ll be a miscarriage of justice.’

‘Many innocents get convicted.’

‘And I hate that as much as I hate to lose.’

She slid onto his lap.

‘Quit.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Then coast.’

‘I’ll lose.’

‘It’s called integrity.’

‘I’m a lawyer.’


A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Lazy Sunday Service

I used to do a half-decent job at keeping up with Irish crime fiction, but I realise I've got a little out of touch over the past year. Besides not keeping up-to-date with on-going series, I've neglected reading new authors or new to me. I have Caimh McDonnell's Angels in the Moonlight on the to-be-read pile and plan to read the following sometime over the summer: Dervla McTiernan, The Ruin; Steve Cavanagh, The Defense; Cormac O'Keeffe, Black Water; Jo Spain, With Our Blessing; Gerard O'Donovan, The Long Silence; and Clar Ni Chonghaile, Rain Falls on Everyone. All my reviews of Irish crime fiction can be found here.

My posts this week:
Review of The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan
April reads
Review of White Butterfly by Walter Mosley
Review of A Negro and an Ofay by Danny Gardner
Always ruining everything

Always ruining everything

The bed was covered in clothes. Cassie looked over her shoulder at the mirror. This dress wasn’t too bad. All she needed now was a matching pair of shoes.

‘Kaiser!’ Ted yelled from outside. ‘Incoming!’

The door flew open and a muddy dog bounded into the room.

‘Out!’

Kaiser tipped his head, then coiled his body.

‘No!’

The dog shook himself vigorously.

Ted skidded into the room.

‘Out!’

‘Sorry, Cass.’

‘Sorry isn’t going to get these clothes cleaned! Nor me washed and to my job interview on time! He has to go.’

‘Woof!’

‘Or you do. Men! Always ruining everything!’



A drabble is a story of exactly 100 words.

Review of The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan (2015, Mulholland Books)

After a heart attack, Inspector Ashwin Chopra is forced to retire from the Mumbai police force. On his last day at work he inherits two mysteries. The first is the seeming suicide of a young man, found drowned in a puddle. The second is the delivery of a young elephant, an inheritance from an uncle. His superiors are not interested in investigating the first, and the building manager is opposed to letting him house the second. Chopra was always an honest cop and he knows what he’s going to do with respect to the dead man – complete the investigation as a civilian. He’s less certain what to do about the elephant, though his wife Poppy is adamant the building manager is not going to get her way. Warned off by senior police officers, Chopra keeps digging, navigating the bustling city and it sharp social divisions, following the few clues that he has. It soon turns into his most dangerous case to date and to his surprise, his new elephant, Ganesha, proves to be an adept sidekick.

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra is the first book in the Baby Ganesh Agency Investigation set in Mumbai. Ganesha is a baby elephant and is Chopra’s unexpected inheritance. The book fits into the loose genre of somewhat mystical, charming cozies, such as Colin Cotterill’s Dr Siri series and Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Lady Detective Agency series. The tale follows Chopra’s attempts to solve a murder of a young man despite being officially retired from the police and to work out what to do about looking after Ganesha. It’s a light and light-hearted read, despite the corruption and violence underpinning the case under investigation. Chopra and his wife Poppy make for a charming couple, Ganesha is an interesting twist, and the story picks up on Indian themes of storytelling, with its nod to the use of mystical gods and Bollywood story structure. However, the charm and sense of place doesn’t fully compensate for a linear and straightforward plot and a tale that lacks substance and depth. Overall, an entertaining tale with a nice hook and lead character.

April reads

My read of April was Thomas Mullen's historical police procedural set in Atlanta in 1948, Dark Town, following the exploits of the cities first black cops.

Dark Town by Thomas Mullen ****.5
The Twilight Warriors by Robert Gandt ***.5
Slumberland by Paul Beatty ****
The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 by Ian W. Toll ****
Capture by Roger Smith ***.5
The Demon Under the Microscope by Thomas Hager ***

Review of White Butterfly by Walter Mosley (Pocket Books, 1992)

Los Angeles, 1956. A man is torturing and murdering black women. The police turn to Easy Rawlins for help; a man used to digging around for answers and who knows the city and its dark underbelly. However, Easy, recently married and with a young baby and school-aged child, is trying to keep on the straight and narrow. When a fourth victim dies, this time a white woman, the police won’t take no for an answer, threatening to jail his best friend and make his life hell. Reluctantly he starts to piece together the last days of each victim. Easy was always a man with secrets and those, his investigation, and his drinking is placing a strain on his marriage. Whether he helps catch the killer or not, it seems he might lose something precious in the process.

White Butterfly is the third book in the Easy Rawlins series set in post-war Los Angeles. In this outing Easy is hustled by the police into helping to track down a serial killer preying on women in the city. It’s the most personal of the books so far in the series, as much about his private home life and him as a person as it is about the case (the first focused more on his history and social circle, the second on his business interests). Easy is a conflicted, flawed, complex character, with secrets that he guards from everyone, including his new wife; an ability to lie, cajole and hustle; a weakness to stray; and a questionable loyalty to a psychopathic friend; yet he also is loving and has his own moral compass he uses to navigate a fraught social world and everyday racism. He exposes all these characteristics as his marriage disintegrates as he searches for the killer. The case isn’t overly complicated, though it has a nice twist, but Mosley tells the tale through an engaging, affective voice and sparse prose that has the cadence of classic hardboiled noir. As with the other books in the series, there is nice historical and social contextualisation and sense of place. The result is a dark, somewhat bleak, but evocative story.