ISBN: 978-1641297202
400 pages
This wry, big-hearted noir brings 1950s New York to life, from the tenements of Hell’s Kitchen to the mansions of Riverdale, from Sing Sing to City Hall, with a gripping murder mystery laying bare the explosive conflicts between its big wheels, its working stiffs, its gangsters, and its dreamers.
July 1950: Mick Mulligan has just hung out his shingle as a private investigator in New York’s sweaty Hell’s Kitchen. A former Hollywood cartoonist who was blacklisted during a communist witch hunt, Mick is broke, divorced, and in need of a paying gig to make his child support payments. But maybe not this gig. First off, it’s impossible. Worse, it’s liable to get him killed.
Last year, universally reviled cab company owner Irwin Johnson was murdered. One of his drivers, an African American Communist Party member named Harold Williams, was arrested, tried, and found guilty, despite scant evidence. Now his execution date is two weeks away. New York City labor leader Duke Rogowski asks Mick to find fresh evidence that might buy Harold a stay of execution.
Lots of people might have wanted Irwin Johnson dead—anyone from his betrayed wife to his jilted mistresses’ jealous husbands to the mafiosi he was stealing business from. But no one has any reason to help Mick exonerate Harold Williams, and some of Irwin’s former associates are happy to take a blunt object to the head of anyone asking awkward questions. Yet Mick can’t abandon a potentially innocent man to the electric chair. Can he pull off a miracle?
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What they’re saying:
“PI Mick Mulligan is an engagingly dogged and wry protagonist, his murder investigation’s supporting cast varied and interesting. But the real star is New York City in the summer of 1950, with a cab strike led by duelling communists and mobsters, and ordinary people still expecting a fair shake. A picture of America which these days feels like ‘fake history.’ But isn’t.”
—David Downing, author of Zoo Station
“Lehane’s pacing and hardboiled dialogue are hard to beat, and he makes the jittery paranoia of the period jump off the page. Fans of James Ellroy will get a kick out of this.”
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“[Lehane’s] gritty portrait of 1950s New York rings true . . . A treat for noir and historical mystery fans.”
—First Clue Reviews