And so…..life goes on.
I’m a little early this month because I only have two books to tell you about (I just finished the second one), but the total page count should qualify as three. And, coincidentally, they are both fictionalized accounts of historical events. You'll see as we go along.
Miscellaneous
Devil’s Garden - Ace Atkins ($15.00/$1.00, copyright 2009, 369 pages, Trade Paperback)
What Atkins has done here is recreate the infamous Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle trial (actually, trials) for the murder of a young woman during a booze and sex filled party he held in a hotel in San Francisco in 1921. The interesting person here - to me - is the Pinkerton agent who’s hired by Arbuckle's attorney (actually assigned to the case by his boss) to find out what really happened. The agent’s name is Samuel Dashiell Hammett, who went on to become one of the greatest writers of detective fiction (think The Thin Man, Sam Spade, etc.). I won’t go into details here because it’s all a matter of public record, and resulted in the end of Arbuckle’s career but Atkins does a good job of evoking the time and place. And he gives us a Hammett at the end of his Pinkerton career with a bad case of tuberculosis, a wife and baby girl, and a fondness for booze and cigarettes. It’s an interesting book, but Atkins constantly shifts the focus to other people involved in the investigation, and there’s a subplot involving William Randolph Hearst that gets a lot of attention, all of which I found distracting. I would have liked it better if it took a more focused approach, staying with Hammett throughout. It was OK.
The Given Day - Dennis Lehane ($15.99/$4.72, copyright 2008, 702 pages, Trade Paperback)
I am a big fan of Lehane, having read all of his Kenzie/Gennaro books and, although not part of that series, I've been looking forward to reading this. It starts in 1918, and follows the lives of a young Irish cop in Boston - Danny Coughlin - and a young black man from Columbus, Ohio - Luther Lawrence. Danny is all wrapped up in the problems that the rank-and-file officers are having - too much work and not enough pay and deplorable working conditions. Through an undercover assignment he becomes involved in the burgeoning labor movement. Luther moves his pregnant wife to Tulsa - an idyllic place for blacks at the time - but gets involved in a terrible crime and flees. Ultimately he winds up in Boston. How these two men meet and interact is the core of this novel. Lehane adds the NAACP, unions, Bolsheviks, family and friends, and famous people (Babe Ruth, J. Edgar Hoover, etc.) and places them in both Bostons - The one that the haves live in and the one that the have-nots are left with. It all comes to a head during the Boston Police Strike of 1919. It’s a very involving read, and entertaining, but I found it to be a bit too long. In my opinion, Lehane could probably have cut out about 100 or so pages. Still, I enjoyed it.
One quick, personal note.....to my cousin, Monica. I'll miss you.
I already have some interesting stuff on the top of the stack for next month so I’m going to get started now. See you then and remember……..
Keep reading.
