Review of Mortal Stakes by Robert B. Parker (1975, Dell)

Boston PI Spenser has been hired by the Red Sox to investigate whether their star pitcher, Marty Rabb, has been throwing the occasional game.  Posing as a sports writer, Spenser starts to poke his nose into the affairs of the franchise.  He soon starts to suspect that all is not well in the Rabb household. In particular, there’s something a little out-of-kilter with Marty’s wife Linda.  With a little digging it Spenser discovers that Linda has a shady past; enough to attract the attention of a careful blackmailer.  And that blackmailer is not happy to have Spenser nosing around.

Mortal Stakes is the third book in the Spenser series (that ran to 39).  In this outing, Spenser is investigating the possibility that Red Sox baseball games are being fixed.  He quickly hones in on the potential vulnerable point in the life of salt-of-the-Earth, star pitcher, Marty Rabb.  It seems that a manager’s suspicions are correct, but rather than confirm the rumour and close the case Spenser prefers to help Rabb and his wife fix their problem and give them a second-chance.  That brings him into conflict with a ruthless blackmailer.  Parker tells the tale in a no-nonsense fashion.  There are no major twists or misdirection, and limited use of plot devices.  Rather the tale is just a well-told straightforward, linear PI investigation - Spenser spots a clue and then tracks down an answer.  The story moves along at a fair clip, with a series of tension points, and there’s a nice sense of time and place (Boston in the mid-1970s).  Overall, an enjoyable, uncomplicated PI tale.

Review of The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh (1975, Orion)

Los Angeles, 1974.  The night patrolmen of Wilshire Division in central Los Angeles work an eight-hour shift, dealing with the underbelly of society – the bad, the mad, the schemers, the downtrodden, and their victims – as well as their bureaucratic bosses who seem more interested in their career trajectories than their fellow officers or the city they serve.  To let off steam, ten of them meet occasionally in MacArthur Park at the end of the shift, along with a couple of overweight cop groupies who work as cocktail waitresses, for ‘choir practice’ – quickly getting drunk on shaken-down booze, fooling around, sharing their night’s adventures and gossip, and venting their frustrations.  One night, however, choir practice ends in tragedy with a fatal shooting that threatens all their careers.

There’s a reason why a ‘best reads of a year’ list should be published in January of the following year.  In this case, the reason is The Choirboys.  Set in 1974 in central Los Angeles, the tale follows the lives of five pairs of patrolmen working the night shift over a six-month period, culminating in a fatal shooting in MacArthur Park, where the men gather periodically to get drunk and let off steam.  The shooting and its fallout form the hook of the story, but the bulk of the novel consists of a series of vignettes related to each pair of patrolmen; their work dealing with the underbelly of Los Angeles society, their interactions with their bosses and each other, and their personal lives.  In essence, the narrative is an extended piece of contextualisation leading up to the MacArthur shooting, as well as a stinging social critique of the ills of society, its causes and the responses, and the nature of policing and police management.  The book was written during Wambaugh’s last serving year as a Los Angeles police officer before he left to become a full-time writer, and it clearly draws on his own experiences and frustrations working a beat and dealing with the administration, as well as the stories and legends circulating among cops.  The result is a fascinating, multi-layered story of ten men struggling to be the thin-blue line, upholding the law in a society creaking with inequalities, abuse and crime, while also trying to keep their own lives from tipping over the edge.  Their safety valve is ‘choir practice’ – a gathering in MacArthur Park at the end of their shift in which they get drunk and vent.  The characterisation and social relations excellent, with Wambaugh fleshing out fully-dimensional personalities who form an uneasy and fractious alliance.  The vignettes and story arc are compelling and realistic.  And the prose and voice are engaging, blending serious social commentary with black humour and tragi-comedy.  Indeed, much of the story is dark in focus, dealing with tragic situations, though Wambaugh balances the pathos with some mirth and genuine laugh-out-loud moments.  At times, the story is a little over-extended, and Wambaugh exaggerates his critique by focusing on a mixed group of screw-up cops tainted by misogyny, racism, violence, corruption and other vices, but there’s no getting away from the fact that The Choirboys is a brilliant novel that works on many levels.  A thoughtful, insightful, critical and entertaining read.  

Review All God’s Children by Arthur Lyons (No Exit Press, 1975)

Jacob Asch works as a private investigator in Los Angeles.  He’s hired by Robert Haynes to search for his eighteen year old step-daughter, Susan Gurney.  Susan has a history of running away.  As a child she fled to her real father, who has a new family, and used to pack her off back home.  The last time was to religious commune, The Word of God.  Haynes had her rescued and deprogrammed but fears she might have returned to the cult.  It seems a straightforward enough case, though the commune is openly hostile to Asch’s enquiries, he finds the deprogrammer dead, and it appears that Susan was dating a motorcycle gang member.  Despite warnings to drop the case, Asch soldiers on, determined to track the young woman down.

All God’s Children is a fairly glib affair that felt like a fairly standard episode of the Rockford Files or Columbo -- more small screen than big; more everyday than exceptional -- but with a lead character who lacks warmth, depth and vitality.  At the one level, this provides a degree of social realism -- Asch is a fairly ordinary guy working as a private investigator.  At another, it took a mix of rich family searching for a runaway child, a cultish commune, and a thuggish motorcycle gang, and made them pretty mundane.  Moreover the denouement felt weak.  The result was an okay, run-of-the-mill story that lacked sparkle and edge.