Series
14 Peck Slip Station - Ed Dee ($5.99/$4.28, copyright 1994, 302 pages, Paperback)
This is the first book in a series that I wrote about a few months ago and mentioned at that time that I'd ordered from a Discount site. Now I finally got around to reading it. Flynn and Gregory are detectives in NY and have been partners for a very long time. They've been checking out the Fish Market for a few days looking for one of the mob bosses when they watch a bunch of goons drop a barrel off a pier. Gregory is convinced that there's a body inside and calls out Special Services. They wind up recovering the wrong barrel but it holds something interesting - the body of a cop who's been missing for over 10 years. A cop who was openly on the take and doing business with and for the mob when he got nailed by IAD and was going to testify. There's a lot at stake for Flynn and Gregory as they deal with mobsters and senior police officials who may have all been involved in the corruption. This book is different from the one's that followed because the violence takes place on the page though none of it is gratuitous. Also, Dee spends a lot of time dealing with families and their relationships. We learn more about Flynn's home life and get to see Gregory's interaction with his father. His descriptions of the city and the various locations the guys drive through are spot-on but I felt that some of the supporting characters were interchangeable. Still, the ending we get feels right under the circumstances. I enjoyed it.
(NOTE: I have the feeling that Dee did not originally intend to build a series out of Flynn and Gregory. The ending here does not gibe with the subsequent books and there are a few things that happen that are changed in the follow-ups. Still, it's a good series and I recommend it.)
Series - Off the Shelf
You Bet Your Life - Stuart Kaminsky ($2.25/$2.25, copyright 1978, 213 pages, Paperback)
There's a formula for certain Detective stories that goes back to the days of Hammett and Chandler. A
down-on-his-luck ex-cop turned Private Investigator gets hired by a rich guy to help a client of his whose being threatened unless he pays a gambling debt that the client swears isn't his. A lot of writers have followed this - some successful some not. Kaminsky has added something interesting - specifics. Toby Peters (the PI) is hired by Louis B. Meyers of MGM (the rich guy) to help Chico Marx (the client) get out of a gambling debt that Chico swears isn't his. Toby has to fly to Florida to speak to Al Capone then take the train to Chicago to meet with Frank Nitti as he tries to find out who's behind things. During his investigation, he gets to interact with Chico and the other Marx Brothers and gets rescued from a tough spot by Ian Fleming. Kaminski does a great job with the characters including the secondary ones and I particularly liked the way he depicts Toby - a 40-ish guy who winds up underdressed in Chicago during the winter and catches a cold. I enjoyed it.
(NOTE: This is the third book in the series. I'm pretty sure I originally read this back in the mid-seventies as a selection from a book club I subscribed to. I can't find the first of the series around here so - you know me -I found it online and ordered it.)
The Monkey's Raincoat - Robert Crais ($7.99/$7.99, copyright 1987, 201 pages, Paperback)
This is the first in the Elvis Cole series and I actually found it in the stack on my bookshelves. Cole is a PI in LA and he's a real wise-ass. He's hired by a woman to track down her husband who appears to have run off and taken their son with him. It seems like a pretty simple case so he starts at the family house to see what he can find.Things start to get out of hand right there. The family house has been ransacked and the cops (including his friend Lou Poitras) get involved. Turns out the husband was in the film industry but not very successful. He's murdered and the boy turns up missing. Cole finds out that a Mexican drug dealer is missing a package and the dead husband is the suspect. He's given a deadline to produce the goods so he brings in his partner, Joe Pike,who's an ex-cop and a sometimes mercenary. This is a short, fast book that intensifies quickly. Cole and Pike are very interesting characters and Crais gives us some background to each of them as the book progresses.There's a lot of violence here but Crais offsets it with humor and some quiet moments between Cole and his client (and Pike). I enjoyed it.
A Drink Before the War - Dennis Lehane ($6.99/$3.75, copyright 1994, 277 pages. Paperback)
I found another of the books in this series within the pile on my bookcases and - you know me - I had
to order the first. It came in while I was reading something else. Patrick Kenzie is a PI in Boston with
a female partner, Angie Gennaro, a decent practice, and he's from the wise-ass school . They get hired by a State Senator and his cronies to recover some "documents" they accuse a cleaning lady of stealing. It seems like a quick job and easy money, but the cleaning lady is black and Boston is boiling over with racial tensions. The Partners track down the woman but Kenzie has a change of heart and they agree to help her out. That lasted until she was murdered in cold blood in a public square. Now they find themselves caught between two rival gangs trying to wipe each other out. Lehane has created a couple of interesting, likeable characters in Kenzie and Gennaro. They've been friends since kids, growing up in the same neighborhood, and the conversations between them ring true. Their back stories - especially Gennaro's abusive marriage - bring in a certain realism and Lehane goes one step further. Other characters who could've been clichés are fleshed out nicely and he wraps up the book with something unexpected. I enjoyed it.
Here's something that I felt I had to add even though most of you probably don't bother with them. I've included totals every year since I've been doing this but, due to circumstances, I missed posting last months. Bear in mind that these are from December, 2017, through November, 2018.
Off the Shelf - 5 books, 22.88 actual cost, 22.88 out of pocket
Miscellaneous - 13 books, 124.16 actual cost, 20.61 out of pocket
Series - 11 books, 76.18 actual cost, 4.75 out of pocket
Miscellaneous - 13 books, 124.16 actual cost, 20.61 out of pocket
Series - 11 books, 76.18 actual cost, 4.75 out of pocket
2018 totals 29 books, 223.22 actual cost, 25.36 out of pocket
grand totals for 9 years 353 books, 3444.97 actual cost, 380.29 out of pocket)
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