A rare, hopeful crime story that also manages to be deeply honest.
A debut novel delivers a journey through poverty and the heroin trade.
Leo Stegner is no stranger to illegal activities. Not only is his father involved with the Mafia through his gambling habit and efforts to pay his debts, but Leo has had a great deal of success as part of an auto-theft ring as well. But when his father and the head of the gang of robbers die in rapid succession, Leo resolves to alter his destructive course even as he vows revenge for his father’s murder. But despite going legit as a courier and later joining the military, Leo ends up deeper in the underworld than when he started; he’s now part of the international heroin market. Traveling throughout the world, running up against danger at every turn, Leo considers himself adaptable: “He would turn into a Goddamn Chameleon if it was a question of surviving.” But when he’s finally caught and convicted, turning his life around once and for all from the inside of a cell is the greatest—and most permanent—transformation he could ever imagine. McCarthy’s tale manages to paint an optimistic picture of what is possible when someone truly decides to change. The novel’s matter-of-fact prose style and fast pace serve the story well, giving a broad perspective on significant events in the United States in the latter part of the 20th century as well as the more personal circumstances that make Leo the man he is. Even so, the book is not without its emotional moments, as when Leo faces trial or when his dreams of retribution come to a head in the prison yard. The senses of anger and despair are palpable and should resonate with readers who’ve been down on their luck, especially any who are familiar with stories of inmates and rehabilitation. That said, as Leo’s life connects him with the space race, the Vietnam War, the introduction of Chinese heroin on American soil, and the war on drugs, even readers uninterested in prison stories will likely find plenty to recommend in this complex narrative.
A rare, hopeful crime story that also manages to be deeply honest.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-944136-00-0
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Ashanti Victoria Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Schneider’s debut enlivens the police procedural with offbeat characters and an appealingly complex hero.
Hollywood detectives catch the strange case of a brutally burned body.
Detective Tully Jarsdel is a former academic, leading his partner, Morales, to call him Professor. When he fights his way through multiple news crews to reach a corpse one day, it's unlike any he’s ever seen. The body is twisted, partially ravaged, and burned so badly it’s unrecognizable. Jarsdel and Morales intensely question Dustin Sparks, the horror-movie special-effects expert who found the body. He eventually admits that he saw the body being dumped from a van, but his addiction to OxyContin makes him a compromised witness. While waiting for DNA results, Jarsdel and Morales watch missing persons reports closely. An odd red disk glued to the victim’s palm turns out to be a 1996 quarter painted red: the case’s first clue, albeit a murky one. DNA connects the victim to grizzled convict Lawrence Wolin, who identifies the man as his brother. The pieces of Grant Wolin’s life come together via interviews prompted by a search of his dirty apartment. He sold jars of “genuine Hollywood dirt” on the street, smoked marijuana occasionally, and was apparently asexual. A dinner scene at the home of Jarsdel’s scholarly parents provides insight into his psyche and his sense of isolation. Though he fits in with neither the gritty world of police work nor the ivory tower of academia, he has a passion for justice.
Schneider’s debut enlivens the police procedural with offbeat characters and an appealingly complex hero.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4926-8444-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good detective in an incendiary procedural.
A Yorkshire detective untangles an old murder and new arsons.
DS Adam Tyler, a cold-case investigator for the South Yorkshire Police, is a bit of a loner, but his boss wants him to network more so he lets Sally-Ann, one of his civilian colleagues, talk him into joining a pub evening with the South Yorkshire Police LGBT Support Network. He doesn't plan to stay long, and when he meets a handsome man at the bar—"Sweetheart, he was everyone's type. Even mine," Sally-Ann says—he abandons the group to go home with him. The next morning, when he gets to work, Sally-Ann tells him there's big news: The body of Gerald Cartwright, a local tycoon and shady character who disappeared years ago, has been found in the basement of his own house during a renovation ordered by his 21-year-old son, who'd just inherited it. Tyler manages to get himself assigned to the investigation though the detective who's been working on it since Cartwright's disappearance doesn't want to hand it over to cold cases; he soon discovers the identity of his one-night stand: Oscar Cartwright, son of the deceased and potential suspect, which further complicates his position. Meanwhile, Edna and Lily, elderly Cartwright retainers of various duties, have begun receiving unsettling anonymous letters, and the whole community is rattled by a series of arsons that seem more and more likely to be related to the discovery of Cartwright's body. As Tyler's investigation slowly uncovers a sordid history of manipulation and abuse, the violence increases and he is assaulted several times. The repetitive nature of these assaults is a weakness in the book, but the richness of Tyler's character and the vividness of his negotiation of his own sexuality and the casual bigotry in his community are effective. The subsidiary characters are lively and believable, the arsons are particularly well described, and though the plot sometimes seems gratuitously complex, this is a rewarding entertainment.
A good detective in an incendiary procedural.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-54202-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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