Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

 Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Anaïs Flogny (2024) 240 pages 

Cinematic and expansive. Parallels some of the Godfather trilogy organized crime milieu, but with a gay man at the center. Closeted gay men, who are both immigrants in America, find the underworld of importing and selling alcohol and, later, other drugs to be their way to success and power. Jules, the younger protege, and Adam are scrappy. The story moves from 1930s Chicago to 1940s New York. Eufrasio is a more violent and ambitious partner from the Mafia family in New York who comes between Jules and Adam. Jules begins to hate himself as he confronts betrayal and guilt.

Bootblack

 Bootblack by Mikaël (2022) 128 pages

I enjoyed the realistic art. Ultimately Al is a kid who is so patriotic, claiming his American-ness, that he turns his back on his immigrant parents. When they die and he ends up an orphan on the streets of New York City in the '20s, he becomes a bootblack with a gang of young friends. He develops a young crush. He further develops his hatred for newer immigrants. He moves money for organized crime families. He goes to prison then gets out just before WWII. All these stories are told as flashbacks from G.I. Al serving overseas in Germany. There are some details from his life that connect in unexpected ways, but fate is cruel and his life ends ironically.

If Something Happens to Me

If Something Happens to Me by Alex Finlay, 324 pages

Five years ago, Ryan Richardson and his girlfriend Alison Lane were spending some quality time together when they were attacked. Ryan was knocked out and Alison (and her dad's BMW) disappeared. When the ensuing investigation turned up nothing, everyone assumed Alison was dead, and many people thought Ryan murdered her. But now, the missing BMW has been pulled up from the bottom of a lake, and there are two dead guys inside, who nobody at all seems to know. There's definitely something more to this story.

This was a quick read and fine for a summer afternoon, but it also felt a bit underdeveloped, like I was reading out an outline or Cliff's Notes version of the story instead of the novel itself. If you want twists and turns and don't really care to read too deeply, this one might be for you. Otherwise, there are better thrillers out there.

Batman: Earth One and Batman '89

 Batman: Earth One, Volume 1 by Geoff Johns (2012) 142 pages and Batman '89 by Sam Hamm (2022) 152 pages

I've read a handful of Batman graphic novels on Hoopla recently. Let me recommend two. The first volume of Batman: Earth One with art by Gary Frank was very good. It takes place in an alternate world where certain characters and events are slightly different than in the regular Batman continuity. We see a bit more of Bruce's boyhood while his parents are still alive. And later when he is putting together his Batman costume/persona, I really appreciated that this version shows him as just a man. His body and his tech are less super. The police are under the thumb of organized crime. It is still a dark criminal world, but very grounded in reality.

Then a newer Batman graphic novel imagines that Tim Burton got to make a third Batman movie. Sam Hamm has a story credit on both of Burton's Batman movies. Joe Quinones illustrates the characters to look like Michael Keaton, Billy Dee Williams, and Michael Gough, etc. The story here provides a lot of things that I liked. We get to know Billy Dee Williams' version of Harvey Dent much more deeply. We witness his transformation into Two-Face. We are also introduced to a brand new character who becomes Batman's sidekick Robin. There were some panels where the action was not quite clear, but it was good to revisit this version of Gotham.

Shrines of Gaiety

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson, 394 pages

It's 1926 and notorious nightclub queen Nellie Coker has just been released from prison. Her brood of adult children has managed her collection of nightclubs in her absence, though only her daughter Edith seems to have any real skill or interest in the family business — eldest son Niven is too busy being aloof, youngest son Ramsey is determined write a great novel between bouts of gambling and dope, daughters Shirley and Betty just don't seem to care, and Kitty, the baby of the family, is too young and, well, annoying. The situation makes Nellie's empire a prime target for takeover from her enemies, who include a mysterious mobster and a crooked cop. Meanwhile, Chief Inspector John Frobisher and erstwhile librarian Gwendolen have teamed up to both spy on Nellie and track down a pair of runaway girls.

The catalog description of this book uses the word "Dickensian," and I think that's apt for this bit of historical fiction. The book is light on plot, but rich with detailed observations, three-dimensional characters, and plots that are just believable enough. Atkinson is one of my favorite authors, and while this isn't my favorite of hers, it's still excellent. (Also, let's go ahead and judge this book by its gorgeous cover.)

Thirty-One Bones

Thirty-One Bones by Morgan Cry, 297 pages

After expat bar owner Effie Coulston dies mid-con, her estranged daughter Daniella travels to her late mother's Spanish seaside town for what she assumes will be a short trip to tend to the funeral and sort out Effie's affairs. But when both her mother's "legal consultant" friend and the local crime kingpin start badgering her about some missing money — more than 3 million euros that they're sure Effie squirreled away somewhere — Daniella finds herself desperately searching for the cash in the face of some fairly short and horrific deadlines.

Daniella is a smart cookie who doesn't take crap from anyone, which means she's the perfect person to take on Effie's various "friends." I loved the odd characters and quirky community they created for themselves, and I'd love to see more of Daniella's adventures in the future. This was a lot of fun.

The Bookseller

The Bookseller (Hugo Marston #1) by Mark Pryor  300 pp.

Hugo Marston is the head of security at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. During his time there he frequents the book stalls along the River Seine. He purchases a couple first editions from one named Max, one of which turns out to be extremely valuable. However, Marston witnesses the kidnapping of Max and the police refuse to believe him. After being told by his Embassy superiors that he must stay out of the local matter, Marston continues to search for Max while uncovering convoluted government agencies and sinister gangs trying to take over the area with the book stalls. The story is a good one but the author gets a little too caught up in his descriptions bogging things down. Not sure if I will venture into more of this series.

Blackfish City

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller, 328 pages

A few hundred years in the future, climate change has changed the face of the planet, forcing people to get creative if they want to continue living. One of those solutions is Qaanaaq, an eight-armed floating city moored above an underground volcano in the north Atlantic. Here, the privately funded city is loose on rules but tight on space, especially in arms Seven and Eight, which are piled high and tight with slums. And it doesn't help that a mysterious sexually transmitted disease is running rampant. This inventive book follows four seemingly unrelated people — bureucrat Ankit, messenger Soq, journeyman fighter Kaev, and strung-out playboy Fill — as they make their way in this city, which is thrown into additional disarray by the simultaneous and unexpected arrival of a woman, an orca, and a polar bear.

Miller has created an immersive setting and multidimensional characters that are full of flaws and shades of gray. I particularly enjoyed the way their motivations shifted as they took in new information. I also liked the mysterious "City Without a Map" bits between chapters, which provided both useful background information and an air of mystery to the novel. I very much enjoyed this book, and I look forward to discussing it with the Orcs & Aliens group on Monday night

The Neon Rain

The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke  248 pp.

This is the first of the New Orleans Detective Dave Robicheaux series. Robicheaux has not had a stellar life. He has flashbacks of his traumatic time in Vietnam, he fights with his police superiors, his wife left him, and he is a recovering alcoholic. When an investigation of a dead prostitute leads him into the murky land of organized crime, drug and arms dealing things get gritty. He is assaulted, framed for murder, and force fed enough alcohol to knock him off the wagon. Yet in the midst of it all, he finds love with a woman who stays with him in spite of his troubles and threats to both their lives. I wasn't expecting the level of violence contained in this story but I kept reading and in spite of it all, I'm going to read more of the series. Even with the nastiness in the story, it made me long for another trip to New Orleans.

Manhattan Beach

Manhattan Beach: a Novel / Jennifer Egan, 438 p.

In 1943 New York, Anna Kerrigan longs to leave her tedious job on the waterfront measuring shipbuilding parts with a micrometer for greater excitement.  She finds it by becoming a diver, a highly trained position involving danger and lots of pushing of gender boundaries.  Meanwhile, she is consumed with the search for her absent father, mysteriously disappeared during her teenage years.  What was her father's connection to the charismatic nightclub owner Dexter Styles?   Is he still alive?  Can she trust Dexter?

A very solid and suspenseful piece of historical fiction, strenuously researched.  I enjoyed the strong sense of place, and was hugely amused by the many underworld conversations which all amounted to the same thing: who's better, an Irish criminal or an Italian one?  The most notable element of the plot was for me the nuanced treatment of Lydia, Anna's developmentally disabled sister.  Nostalgia, suspense, and danger on the high seas add up to an engaging read.

Once a Crooked Man

Once a Crooked Man: a novel by David McCallum  352 pp.

Back in the 1960s there was a television show called "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." in which David McCallum was one of the stars. I admit to having a mad crush (as much as a 9 year old can) on his character Illya Kuryakin. Now that same actor plays Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard on the show N.C.I.S. and he is still charming, funny, and attractive at age 84. I never would have picked up this audio book had it not been on sale, and read by the author. I was skeptical about it being one more mediocre celebrity authored novel but was pleasantly surprised. The story involves a crime family, the Bruschetti brothers, an investment broker laundering money for the family, and an actor who happens to overhear the Bruschettis plotting a hit. The actor, Harry Murphy, takes it upon himself to warn the intended victim who mistakenly believes Murphy is the Bruschetti's courier sent to pick up thousands of dollars in cash. The Bruschetti brothers just want to get out of the crime business, take the money, and retire before the authorities are on to them. Their broker just wants to keep his involvement under wraps. The whole thing is a comedy of errors with fatalities. I enjoyed it more than I expected.  

The Black Hand: the Epic War Between a Brilliant Detective and the Deadliest Secret Society in American History

The Black Hand / Stephan Talty, 298 pp.

Joseph Petrosino is an American hero that most of us have never heard of.  In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a form of organized crime developed in Italian-American communities which was new for its time.  Members of the mysterious Black Hand would kidnap people, in particular entirely innocent children, and demand cooperation with their protection racket in exchange for the prisoner's life.  Talty draws a skilful portrait of the helpless terror families faced, and of the idealistic, almost supernaturally courageous Petrosino, the first Italian-American detective of the New York police force.

A great all-around slice of history, Talty is especially strong when looking at the effects of prejudice on policing; in this case, the largely Irish NYPD saw the Black Hand's predations as just Italians doing their violent Italian thing.  The result was that the Black Hand grew unchecked for years before Petrosino stubbornly climbed the ranks and pushed for more vigorous policing of his community.  Eerily and depressingly similar to Jill Leovy's analysis of under-policing of African-American communities in Ghettoside.

The Black Dahlia

The Black Dahlia / James Ellroy, 325 pp.

After finishing Rick Geary's Black Dahlia I thought I would compare it with the fictional treatment of Elizabeth Short's story, told by the author of L.A. Confidential, Suicide Hill and others.  Short was murdered in particularly gruesome fashion in 1947 Los Angeles; the crime was never solved.  Ellroy tells her tale through the narrative of two fictional detectives, Lee Blanchard and Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, former boxers who happen to be in love with the same woman.

The novel was first published 30 years ago and its setting takes us back 70 years.  And it sure reads like a trip in a time machine!  There is one heck of a lot of misogyny, racism, and homophobia packed into these pages, most of it a perfectly accurate depiction of the setting, no doubt.  The lingo - a very noir LAPD-ese - is great fun, but it took some getting used to.  And the story?  On that point, I would have to agree with the rave reviews on the jacket.  Detective fiction doesn't get much better than this.  But I think my next LA noir read will be an Easy Rawlins by Walter Mosley.  Same time, same place, but a very different perspective.

The Story of the Lost Child: The Fourth and final Neapolitan Novel / Elena Ferrante, trans. Ann Goldstein, 473 p.

Elena returns to Naples with her children.  She returns for a man, but in the end stays for Lila, as she takes a flat in Lila's building.  We see the two women go through the ordinary events of middle age -  raising children, burying parents, drifting away from lovers - and the not-so-ordinary - the murder of childhood friends, the continued impact of organized crime on day-to-day life, and the disappearance of a child.  There are unsolved mysteries here that pull you through the text.  In the end, Elena and Lila felt like my friends, and I hated to say good-bye to them.  An especially gorgeous ending.

The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning by Hallgrimur Helgason, 256 pp.

No, this is not a companion piece to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. It is the tale of a hitman from Croatia with the nickname "Toxic". He is a professional with 66 successful hits to his, um...credit. When he accidentally kills the wrong man he is forced to flee the U.S. and murders a clergyman in an airport restroom to assume his identity and tickets to Iceland, not realizing the clergyman is a t.v. evangelist due to appear on Icelandic television. In Iceland he stays with a married couple who run a religious television network but when his identity is discovered ends up being tracked by the police and the mobsters who want him dead for the bad hit. During all this he realizes it's time to "retire" from the hired killer business and tries to begin a new life with the daughter of the the evangelist couple. Convoluted but entertaining. The Icelandic author chose to write this novel in English rather than his native tongue and have it translated. The latter method might have improved the flow and the dialogue.

The Guest Room

The Guest Room: a novel by Chris Bohjalian  318 pp.

In general, I like Chris Bohjalian's books but this is far from my favorite. A successful banker allows his ne'er-do-well brother's bachelor party to be held in his Bronxville home. Richard Chapman's wife and daughter leave to spend the night at his mother-in-law's while the revelry occurs. What was supposed to be a night of drinking and entertainment by strippers turns into a bloodbath when one of the girls (prostitutes, not strippers) attacks their "bodyguards" with a kitchen knife. The house becomes a crime scene, the bad press puts Richard's lucrative job in jeopardy, his marriage is self-destructing, and the "friend" who arranged for the strippers/prostitutes is trying to blackmail him. Somehow, Bohjalian never seems to evoke sympathy for the characters, especially Richard. While the ending is a bit of a surprise, it wasn't enough to raise my opinion of this book. The Sandcastle Girls and The Light in the Ruins are better selections from the author's repertoire.

The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley / Jeremy Massey 288 pp.

Paddy Buckley (no relation) is a trusted employee of Gallagher's (also no relation) funeral home in Dublin.  One rainy night he's horrified to hit and kill a pedestrian.  He's considerably more horrified once he realizes it's the brother of Dublin's most vicious crime boss.  This is an intensely-paced noir thriller with quite a bit of sweetness mixed in, and it kept me guessing to the end.

P.S.  Massey earns extra points for convincingly portraying a 60-ish woman as the object of a much younger man's lust.  His mother must be proud of him.

The Glasgow Trilogy

The Glasgow Trilogy by Malcolm Mackay

The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter, 316 pages
How a Gunman Says Goodbye, 360 pages
The Sudden Arrival of Violence, 391 pages

In a stark and spare manner these three books explore the relationships between characters who are gunmen, enforcers, mid-level criminal management, or members of the Glasgow police as they go about their daily lives. Their daily lives are filled with betrayals, rumor, and violent reactions. Very few of the characters enjoy the killing and the violence that they face or mete out on a daily basis, it's all just part of the job, part of maintaining a strong image in a world where the perception of weakness can bring about tragic changes of circumstance.
Mackay is a master of conveying the mood of a scene, the setting and all of the action through his character's observations and internal monologue.
Through the trilogy an aging gunman, Frank, tries to accept that his recent hip replacement may mean the end of his life in organized crime. His protege, Colum, must decide if the life he has been living will be all he ever knows.
Reminiscent of Ted Lewis's Get Carter series and Richard Stark's Parker novels. Fans of well-written, fast-paced crime fiction will enjoy these. They are excellent.
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C.O.W.L., volume 1

C.O.W.L., vol. 1: Principles of Power by Kyle Higgins, art by Alec Siegel, Rod Reis, and Trevor McCarthy, 128 pages

During World War II, The Grey Raven and other superheroes (some with powers and some just with fancy toys) helped end the war and bring the Allies victory. When they returned home, they found that crime families had taken advantage of their absence and set up shop, especially in Chicago. So what is a superhero to do? Organize and work with the police to bring down the mobs, one at a time. Fast forward to 1962, and C.O.W.L., the Chicago Organized Workers League, has just taken down one of the last supervillains. But unfortunately, their contract with the Chicago Police Department is up for renegotiation, and Mayor Daley is ready to play hardball. Can C.O.W.L. survive, especially when they seem less than relevant? And how did Skylancer, the last villain they took down, end up with classified C.O.W.L. blueprints? This is an interesting premise, almost Watchmen-like, and I enjoyed the set-up for what is likely to be long, overarching story about what might very well be the demise of the organization. The art is great, and the coloring gives a nice, muddy wash (a little too much at times) to really drive home the griminess of the setting. After the end of the issue 5, I'm definitely intrigued to see what happens next for C.O.W.L.

Pronto

Pronto by Elmore Leonard, 386 pages.

The late Elmore Leonard is, or I guess, was one of my favorite crime writers. There's not a book of his that stands out to me as the best of all time or anything, but they are all very well crafted, with satisfying plots, and complicated characters who face unexpected situations. None of Leonard's characters have single motivating characteristics; they are all dealing with complex situations from viewpoints that are theirs alone, and everything that happens is colored by their perceptions and mis-perceptions.
Pronto is the first book that Leonard wrote featuring the now famous character of Raylan Givens. Raylan in the book is similar to the character of the same name in the FX series, Justified, but there are some differences. The gunfight that launches the TV series is here, but it's different. Raylan Givens in the book is older, not quite as charismatic, and comes across as not quite as clever. A good read for fans of Leonard, the TV series, or crime fiction in general.
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