FATHER DIVINE'S BIKES

Bassett presents a wide-ranging crime novel set in 1940s Newark, New Jersey.

Two teenage altar boys, Richie Maxwell and Joey Bancik, are recruited to run numbers by men who claim to be working for preacher Father Divine. The boys leap at the chance to earn extra money and take paper routes to provide cover for their activities. However, they find themselves over their heads when they become embroiled in a newspaper circulation war that’s part of a larger mob war. The novel has an extensive cast of characters, ranging from police officers on the take to rival gang members, newspapermen, neighborhood kids and their families, priests, and others. However, most of these players receive extensive backstories, sometimes going back several generations, and the narrative often gets bogged down in excessive detail as a result, making it more difficult than necessary to keep track of all the people involved. The author does a good job of establishing why a circulation war would have such high stakes in this time period (“He had no way of knowing that the [paper route] job would put him in the middle of the Ward’s numbers racket and a circulation street brawl”), and of creating an immersive historical atmosphere that feels generally authentic. However, multiple characters’ use of various offensive slurs and derogatory language goes beyond verisimilitude into gratuitous territory. This book is the first in a trilogy, and most of the novel is dedicated to setting the stage for the turf war to come, with action only kicking off at the very end. This pace is simply too slow, considering the excessive length of the book, and readers will likely wish that narrative had a bit more forward momentum, instead on dwelling at length on character histories and worldbuilding.

An immersive exploration of Newark’s mid-20th-century underworld, hampered by pacing issues.