From this question springs the whole of Wild Bill's wild ride, involving not just the two sides of the Chicago Outfit, but cops and Feds as well. This is a very accomplished debut novel, which keeps many plates adeptly spinning, and reminded me in this sense of novels by John McFetridge and Declan Burke, and from there inevitably hearkens back to the crime fiction of Elmore Leonard. There is quite a lot of understated humor in this book as well. I probably should have taken a few notes so that I could quote you a few lines, but maybe it's just as well, as you will run across them yourselves.
As I'm not normally a huge fan of the Goodfella kind of mentality, it's probably understandable that I would be a tad more interested in the Feds and cops, though you couldn't by any stretch of the imagination make this a black and white sort of issue. But I would have liked to see more of fed protagonist Will Hickox's sidekick Ray Fa'alepo, and definitely more of Madeline "Mad" Klimak, a strong female protagonist who shows that King has a range beyond the macho trope. Maybe they'll appear in a sequel?
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Interesting, your observation about Goodfellas. Both Dana King and Charlie Stella, who have a mutual admiration society (and John McFetridge, for that matter) stand out because they probe the lives of cops and agents as well as gangsters.
ReplyDeleteI also see that that internecine has been on your mind.
I am not much in the know about the typical gangster fare because gangsters don't interest me much. I latched on to this book because I've seen Dana's perceptive comments in many places that would be familiar to you, and stayed for his adept orchestration. As I said, the law enforcement side is really the most interesting part for me. I saw on Tim Hallinan's blog that Dana was a bit scared to write a woman character, but I think he did quite well with the only major one in the cast here, and I saw that many people liked Mad Klimak a lot and hoped for her return.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this will spur you to read Charlie Stella and, if you haven't already, McFetridge. One of Stella's recent novels, Mafiya, does, indeed, take in Russian gangsters. But some of the cops who figure largely in his other books make small appearances, and the protagonist is a woman bent on finding out what happened to her friend and then avenging her. She is a former hooker now working as a temporary word processor for lawyers, and some hard-hitting early chapters concern the stuff women in jobs like that put up with.
ReplyDeleteI've read the first couple of John's and will get to the next couple soon. I haven't read Stella, but you're right, their mutual admiration society will push his writing further up the list.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Seana. This is much appreciated, and I shared the link on Facebook. Maybe it will drive a little traffic your way. I've read through some of your other reviews and will add the blog to my subscriptions.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure, Dana, and thanks for your efforts at dissemination as well. I will try to put up a less rambling portion of this at a couple of other familiar places.
DeleteSeana, I know that McFetridge likes Charlie Stella's writing, too. I don't if one could call these three writers a school, but there a certain cluster of common interests among them.
ReplyDeleteThey may well call them a school, though, in the future.
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ReplyDeleteFor now it's just an elementary school.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I was just going to ask you in all seriousness what nlw meant. But I just got it, and salute the jest.
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