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Jun 14, 2021emerge rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
You know the movie that plays in your head while you read? This is a book you’ll be watching in black & white. Dark city streets, Packards driven by men in fedoras & plenty of cigarette smoke….all of this transports you to 1930’s Phoenix. It’s like many American towns…..reeling from the Great Depression & not even able to (legally) drown its sorrows due to Prohibition. It’s in this setting we meet brothers Gene & Don Hammons. Both are veterans of the Great War who returned & joined the Phoenix Police Department. But any similarities end there. To get a sense of their relationship dynamic, think Cain & Abel or maybe Noel & Liam. Gene rose quickly through the ranks & was a well respected detective before being forced out after he stood up for a woman framed for murder. His innate sense of right vs wrong meant he couldn’t go along to get along in a department riddled with corruption. So now he ekes out a living as a P.I. His days are spent looking for missing persons & catching up with girlfriend Victoria Vasquez, a news photographer. Don resented Gene’s success & skills as a detective. Fortunately, he’s never been burdened by ethics & welcomes the little perks that come with being on the job. He never misses an opportunity to sneer at Gene’s moral code. So it’s more than a bit surprising when he reaches out to help his little brother. It all begins with a body. A pretty young blond is found by the train tracks & there are a couple of things immediately wrong with this picture. First, she’s in pieces…literally. Second, the only thing in her handbag is Gene’s business card. Fortunately, Don was at the scene & the card quickly makes its way back to Gene who’s stumped. Was the woman planning to hire him? Or was he being set up to take the fall? Identifying the woman proves a challenge. Local politicians worried about bad PR are keen for the cops to move on & with no new leads, the case is quietly shelved. But Gene can’t let it go. He begins to dig into the mysterious young woman’s past, a decision that puts him & Victoria in danger. Settle in for a dark & twisty tale that is richly evocative of the era. It’s a time of rampant poverty, Depression camps, dirty politicians & corrupt cops. The mob is spreading west like a fungus & no one is immune. There’s a definite noir vibe to the narrative but the style of prose & Gene’s character prevent it from sliding into pulp territory. Yes, he’s a PI in the 1930’s but that’s where any similarity to his hardboiled counterparts ends (although he may argue that Victoria qualifies as a femme fatale…). Instead of a swaggering, tough talking collector of dames (that would be Don), Gene is a quiet man haunted by what he experienced during the war. Today he’s be diagnosed with PTSD but the best they had then was shell-shock, a mildly derogatory term implying weakness. As a consequence, he is startled by loud noises & frequently takes little mental side trips down memory lane. As he recalls these vignettes from his past, we get a better understanding of his relationship with Don & how they grew so far apart. He’s a deep thinker with a spirituality he clings to as his last hope for redemption. In terms of pace & direction, it reminded me of The Searcher by Tana French. It’s a literary PI story that is more about the people than the crime. It moves along at a steady speed that allows you to enjoy the descriptive prose & get to know the characters. Tension builds slowly until you reach a place where you’re afraid to turn the page, sure there’s going to be an “oh crap” moment right around the corner. That continues to the last few pages when all pieces finally slide into place. It’s a dark, immersive read with a sympathetic MC you’ll quietly root for. BTW, thumbs up to those responsible for the beautiful cover art.