Review: Dodgers

Dodgers by Bill Beverly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It has taken me a few weeks to ponder this novel before reviewing it - the reason being it initially struck me as one of the best things I have read, certainly in the last couple of years, and I am always a little suspicious of really strong first reactions. But, having re-read passages and spent some time thinking about 'Dodgers', I am convinced that this book will be one I will return to again and again.

Bill Beverly's prose is sublime, his dialogue convincingly authentic and his characters, particularly his 'hero', East, whose coming of age story this is, well-drawn and realistic. 'Dodgers' is a novel of LA gangs, drug-dealing and murder but much, much more than that. It is the story of a Quest and shares a lot with 'Lord of the Rings' or, perhaps more closely, 'The Searchers'. Like them, the object of the quest is not what it initially appears to be, it is actually a search for self.

East, a teenage gangbanger, deemed responsible for a police raid on a crack den, is sent by his uncle and gang leader, to murder a witness in an upcoming trial, accompanied by three others including his volatile, dangerous younger brother. As East travels from LA to Wisconsin he discovers a country he has never imagined, let alone seen, peopled by a race alien to him, and he discovers who he is. The further east he goes the more he comes to understand East.

There is little light in 'Dodgers' but it is hauntingly, achingly beautiful. I look forward to whatever Bill Beverly does next.

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Review: Darktown

Darktown by Thomas Mullen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In 1948 the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia hired eight black police officers in a pact to secure votes in black neighbourhoods. The officers, at least one of whom was a veteran of World War II, were restricted to patrolling black areas of the city and could not, under any circumstances, arrest white people. This startling hypocrisy extended to the officers’ squad room, the basement of the local YMCA as segregation meant that they were prohibited from entering the main police headquarters.

Thomas Mullen’s ‘Dark Town’ is an intelligent and literate thriller set in Atlanta just after the city has, controversially, employed these first eight ‘coloured’ police officers. It is a time when “antilynching legislation … kept failing in Washington” and the commanding officer concentrates on “trying to make sure his Negro officers didn’t screw up while also trying to keep the white officers from flat-out attacking his “men.” ”

Lucius Boggs and his partner Tommy Smith witness a white driver crash into a lamppost in ‘Dark Town’, the negro quarter they patrol. The driver, whose young black female passenger appears to have been beaten, refuses to wait while Boggs contacts the ‘real’ police. When the girl later turns up dead Boggs decides to investigate, strictly against the regulations. Meanwhile, Dennis Rakestraw, a white police officer, also a war veteran, becomes increasingly disillusioned by the actions of his openly racist partner, Lionel Dunlow. And, when it becomes apparently that Dunlow has some connection to the car driver and, by extension, the murdered girl, Rake’s and Boggs’ investigations overlap.

Mullen’s characters and setting are incredibly well realised. The Atlanta background feels real and the racism experienced by the black officers, overt and casual, is authentic. The characters, even the worst of them, are rounded with understandable, albeit in many cases disagreeable, motivations. The resentment and suspicion felt by both the white and black communities towards each other, that suspicion extended to the ‘Uncle Tom’ officers by many of their neighbours, the ‘threat’ felt by whites witnessing the expansion of the black middle-class - the author paints all of these vividly. A satisfying and thought provoking historical novel about a period I knew very little about. Highly recommended.

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Review: Since We Fell

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“On a Tuesday in May, in her thirty-fifth year, Rachel shot her husband dead. He stumbled backward with an odd look of confirmation on his face, as if some part of him had always known she’d do it.”

‘Since We Fell’ opens in a way I have come to expect from Dennis Lehane - in the heart of the action, a crime (?) committed. Who is Rachel Childs and why has she killed her husband? And then….

And then, it is not that novel. What follows is a ‘literary’ novel, the story of a woman whose life is dominated by the missing. Denied her father’s identity by her controlling and manipulative mother, Rachel tries to find him. Becoming an reporter, she is haunted, firstly by those taken by the hurricane in Haiti, then by those taken by the rape gangs who follow in its wake. Rachel is unhappy, unfulfilled and close to breakdown but, despite her issues, perhaps because of them, she is hard to root for. Lehane writes brilliantly and some of his prose is stunningly good but Rachel is not an entirely sympathetic character. She is needy, self-absorbed and a bit whiny… But her story is captivating. Even as I struggled with the direction of the book, trying to work out exactly what I was reading, where Lehane was going, I was enjoying it immensely. The story moves slowly, there is little in the way of real plot, but I enjoyed the writing, the commentary on modern American values, the media.

“God. I want the capital-G God the televangelists claim moves tornadoes out of their paths. The one who cures cancer and arthritis in the faithful, the God professional athletes thank for taking an interest in the outcome of the Super Bowl or the World Cup or a home run hit in the eighty-seventh game of the hundred sixty-two played by the Red Sox this year.”

And then, it is not that novel.

About halfway through ‘Since We Fell’ goes in a different direction. You don’t see it coming. It is so jarring that it is almost as if you have started another novel, one that is pretty much all about plot, and I suppose how the reader reacts to this, accepts this, is down to how much you like, and trust, Dennis Lehane. Having read Lehane since the Kenzie and Gennaro novels, I was prepared to go with him. And I am glad I did.

I won’t go into the details of the second half of ‘Since We Fell’. It is only fair for others to enjoy (or be infuriated by) the abrupt transition. In terms of Lehane’s work I suspect this is a bit of an experiment, a flawed but enjoyable and worthwhile experiment.

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Review: The Liar

The Liar by Steve Cavanagh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steve Cavanagh's third Eddie Flynn novel is his best yet. Obviously inspired by Grisham and Connelly, with 'The Liar' Cavanagh comes very close to matching him. The story follows the same basic pattern of the previous two novels - an unusual case, lots of action, a courtroom battle in which more is at stake than meets the eye, short, fast moving chapters which, like Saturday morning Flash Gordon serials, end on cliffhangers which make you want to keep reading. Cavanagh is becoming a master of these WTF moments and there are many fewer instances in 'The Liar' where I felt the narrator, Eddie Flynn, was withholding information from me. In other words, the surprises and twists arise naturally from the plot. And, of course, Eddie Flynn, street-smart, ex-conman turned defence lawyer, is an engaging character.

The time around Eddie is acting for the father of a kidnapped daughter, a security specialist who believes he knows better than the FBI how to get his daughter back and is probably going to break the law to do so. Eddie gets more involved in the action than a lawyer would be expected to, gets to punch people, gets to cross-examine people, all the while trying to work out, as the reader is, exactly what is going on. And it is great fun. The pace is frenetic. It's not perfect but it is very very entertaining and I look forward to what Steve Cavanagh and Eddie Flynn do next.

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Review: Here and Gone

Here and Gone by Haylen Beck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Haylen Beck's debut reads like the work of a much more experienced writer. Which of course it is, actually being the 8th novel by Northern Ireland writer, Stuart Neville. But neither the author nor the publisher have made any attempt to keep this a secret, and it makes perfect sense being a real departure from Neville's excellent Ulster-set police procedurals.

'Here and Gone' will appeal to readers of Harlen Coben and Linwood Barclay. Like those authors, the story concerns ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. In "Here and Gone', a mother fleeing an abusive husband with her son and daughter is pulled over by police as she drives from New York to the west coast. Arrested for possession of drugs, she is separated from her children and, when she asks about them, the arresting officer answers, "What children?"

It is a great premise for a psychological thriller and the author handles the tension well as the woman's anxiety grows, with the local police, the FBI, the residents of the small town in which she is held and, of course, the media firmly convinced of her guilt in the disappearance of her children.

An almost unbearably suspenseful novel which deserves huge success. Thanks to NetGalley and Harvill Secker/Vintage for the advance review copy. 'Here and Gone' is published July 13. Highly recommended.

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Review: The Plea

The Plea by Steve Cavanagh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steve Cavanagh's second Eddie Flynn novel builds and improves on a decent debut. A twisty, tightly plotted legal thriller, 'The Plea' can stand with 'The Firm' or 'The Lincoln Lawyer'. While there are still a few unlikely developments and a couple of cases where Eddie, the first person narrator, withholds crucial information, Cavanagh maintains the fast, exciting pace throughout. The author has mastered the technique of using short chapters which finish on mini-cliffhangers that make you want to turn the page and keep going.

Eddie Flynn, ex-con artist turned defence lawyer, has to use all his street skills in the courtroom against not only the weight of evidence but also pressure from the FBI who believe Eddie's client holds vital information key to exposing a major money laundering racket and want a plea bargain to secure it. The problem is that Eddie believes his client is innocent.

I really enjoyed this and look forward to seeing where Steve Cavanagh and Eddie Flynn go next. Thankfully, the third Flynn novel, 'The Liar', is on my kindle.

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Review: The Cleaner

The Cleaner by Mark Dawson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Come on,” Milton said. “Look at me—do I look like James Bond?”

I enjoyed ‘The Cleaner’, Mark Dawson’s first John Milton novel, having come to it with little expectation - the author sent me the book as part of his subscriber’s Starter Library but it sat on my Kindle until an interview with Dawson on Steve Cavanagh’s & Luca Veste’s very fine ‘Two Crime Writers and a Microphone’ podcast sparked my interest again.

John Milton, the British government’s longest serving assassin, decides to quit following a messy situation in France; but you cannot quit… Pursued by Control, and a younger, more ruthless would-be successor, Milton becomes involved with a woman from London’s Hackney area whose 15-year old son has been drawn into a criminal gang led by a charismatic rapper come drugs dealer, a sort of cross between Dizzy Rascal and Scarface. The story is fast moving, violent and very entertaining. Essentially the plot is what would happen if Bond became the Equaliser against the background of the London riots from a few years back. There is a little clunky dialogue and exposition but enough to keep me interested in the series.

And of course Milton looks like James Bond; Dawson takes his physical description straight from Fleming.

“His eyes were on the grey side of blue, his mouth had a cruel twist to it, there was a long horizontal scar from his cheek to the start of his nose, and his hair was long and a little unkempt, a frond falling over his forehead in a wandering comma.”

And Milton carries “very little in the way of possessions, but what he did own was classic and timeless: a wide, flat gun-metal cigarette case; a black oxidized Ronson lighter; a Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch.”

If you like Ian Fleming’s Bond, the John Milton series comes highly recommended. As does Cavanagh’s and Veste’s podcast.


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Review: Bad Blood

Bad Blood by Brian McGilloway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Brian McGilloway is invisible, and that is a rare talent for a writer. There are writers, many of whose work I love, who sacrifice plot for beautifully constructed passages that warrant re-reading for the pleasure of the words; there are others for whom plot is everything and who sell millions of copies despite clunky, painfully overwrought writing. McGilloway is a storyteller who, over the course of several novels, has consistently delivered entertaining, densely plotted crime stories which simultaneously comment on current affairs, particularly post-Troubles Northern Ireland life; all without such comment getting in the way of the story. He never preaches – there are enough preachers in Northern Ireland – but, while his stories flow in a way that almost makes you forget you are reading, McGilloway is also holding up a mirror to some of the events and people still holding the country back.

‘Bad Blood’ is set in the week leading up to the Brexit referendum. The discovery of the badly beaten body of a young gay man brings DS Lucy Black into contact with a community full of suspicion and intolerance – not just the sectarianism so long prevalent in Northern Ireland society but also prejudice against homosexuals and immigrants, prejudice stirred up by firebrand preachers and ex-paramilitary community ‘leaders’.

“In Northern Ireland, you can’t have your cake at all if you’re gay…”

McGilloway’s characters are fully realised. They may have stereotypical views but there are no stereotypes. The loyalist leaders, feuding among themselves, may garner little sympathy but McGilloway captures perfectly the very real concerns in the working-class estates that keeps such figures in positions of influence. “I see the end of our culture”, says the preacher. “We’re not allowed to march. We’re not allowed to fly our flag…. This peace dividend? They never told us it was for the middle classes only. They never said that the poor would stay poor.”

The threads running through ‘Bad Blood’ come straight from the headlines in a Northern Ireland where politicians are more concerned with arguing the right of a bakery to discriminate against gay people for ‘religious’ reasons than they are with forming an effective government; where paramilitary organisations drive out ‘foreign’ drug dealers only to protect their own monopolies; where dissenters are ‘six-packed’, shot in elbows, knees and ankles; where houses are daubed with anti-Roma slogans. Brian McGilloway handles these complex issues with a masterful touch, never making them the focus of the novel, rather informing a very good police procedural which can be read and enjoyed as just that. But, if the reader is prepared to dive deeper, the story is so much more rewarding.

‘Bad Blood’ will be published just three weeks before the day of the general election, an election informed by Brexit, an election which will likely lead to further division, perhaps particularly in the only part of the UK with a land border to the Europe we are currently divorcing…

Thanks to Corsair/Hachette and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

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Review: The Ghosts of Galway

The Ghosts of Galway by Ken Bruen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“It’s not that the Irish are cynical. It’s simply that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody.” – Brendan Behan

Jack Taylor returns in “The Ghosts of Galway” with the “lack of respect” to which author Ken Bruen alludes in his Behan quote, but also with a healthy dose of cynicism. The all-weather Garda coat and the hurley return too along with “newish 501s, and the scuffed Doc Martins. You never knew when you might need to kick someone in the face.” And, as always, kicking is only the beginning of the violence meted out, and suffered, by Jack as the story proceeds and he deals with a strangely named Ukrainian; a Ron Hubbard wannabe and his enforcers; dead animals being dumped in Eyre Square; a girl with an imaginary brother; his former best friend, and now sworn enemy, Garda Ridge; and, most troubling, the return of “Emily and her diffuse weirdness” who made Taylor’s life such a “Green Hell” in his last outing. As Jack muses,

“…a thriller writer would throw out all these strands and then, presto, wrap them all up with a rugged hero, battered but unbowed, heading into an award-winning future.”

Of course, Jack Taylor, often battered, is not the traditional ‘rugged hero’ but then Ken Bruen is anything but a typical ‘thriller writer’…. There really is nothing like a Ken Bruen novel – the lyrical, poetic prose; the wry commentaries on current affairs (this time the 2016 deaths of musical heroes, the rise of Trump and Brexit; water charges…); the humour in the darkest of dark noir; the unique way he uses language, not only in the words he chooses to use but also
The
Way
Bruen
Puts
Words
On
The
Page
No other novels read like Ken Bruen’s. Brutal realism collides with stream of consciousness surrealism, commentary on the Kardasians with extreme bloody violence. The dialogue is rhythmic and musical… And profane.

For avenging angel Jack Taylor there is little redemption but, for the reader, there are few experiences to rival these books. I couldn’t put this down. Said,
“I can’t put this down.”

Unfortunately, it was over far too quickly.

“The Ghosts of Galway” is not published until November and I thank Mysterious Press and NetGalley for the early review copy and look forward to doing it all again on publication date.


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Review: Bloodstream

Bloodstream by Luca Veste
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was my first Luca Veste and I enjoyed it. Yes it is a little clichéd and a little ITV Crime Drama-like but Veste is very readable and his Murphy and Rossi team are likeable. The plot concerns the murder of a Liverpool-based celebrity couple and the subsequent investigation which reveals the existence of a serial killer targeting couples who have been keeping secrets from each other. It is a competent police procedural which has something to say about the way social media and the tabloid press exploit both celebrity and victims of crime. Veste could perhaps have explored this aspect of his story more but there was enough here to make me read more of the series and, on Whispersync, John Keeble's Liverpudlian narration really captured the Scouse wit.

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Review: A Dark So Deadly

A Dark So Deadly by Stuart MacBride
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Welcome to Mother’s Misfit Mob”

Stuart McBride’s new novel, “A Dark So Deadly”, is a standalone, separate from his Logan McCrae or Ash Henderson series although set in the same fictional town of Oldcastle as the latter. DC Callum MacGregor has ended up on a squad of police officers that no-one else wants, suspected of contaminating a crime scene but without enough evidence to have him sacked. His fellow ‘Misfits’ are similarly tainted and together they have been side-lined, unlikely to see a decent case again. When a mummified body is found in a landfill site the team are tasked with ringing round museums to find out from where it has been stolen. Then the discovery of another mummy and some strange post-mortem results suggests that the bodies are not in fact centuries old but the result of more recent experiments and that the Misfit Mob has a serial killer on their hands.

The novel is full of McBride’s usual dark humour and some characteristically Scottish descriptive terms.

“The old station house in Castleview had a weird sour coconutty smell, as if it’d got blootered on Malibu the night before and vomited all over itself. Maybe the Security Monitoring and Analysis Department liked to lube themselves up with suntan lotion of a Saturday morning?”

Initially like a dysfunctional family, we see the Misfit’s pull together as the strange case develops. Callum, who because of events in his childhood has little sense of self-worth, proves to be a capable investigator, even as his personal life gets messier. The characters, fr all their issues, become real and likeable.

In the background of the investigation is a music festival and the narrative is accompanied in places by a cheesy radio DJ advertising the event. McBride has great fun capturing the inanity of such local radio personalities as he does with the band names of those appearing at the concert – new album from ‘Overture for a Riot’ anyone?

This is a long book for a police procedural but the story rattles along. There are a few missteps – I could have done with less bad poetry from what was otherwise a really interesting character; there are a few convenient coincidences – but the book is thrilling, scary in places and very, very entertaining. I hope we see more of the Misfits and that this ‘standalone’ is the start of a new series.

I thank NetGalley and HarperCollins for the advance copy.


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