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(More customer reviews)The time is 1959, Ike Van Savage, P.I. is hired by Vicky Petrone, wife of the mobster, Joe Petrone. Vicky tells Ike that her husband intends to kill her. Her reason is that he knows she's no longer in love with him and she knows that Joe's first two wives died under questionable circumstances.
In this noir story, Rochester, New York is described as a town run by the mob. We learn a great deal about the city at that time, the politics, the parties by the lake and the manner in which the police seem to look the other way when the mob is at work.
Ike is involved in a number of related cases. Paddy Doyle, a slum landlord, who owns buildings downtown, refuses to sell his buildings to the mob. He sees one of his buildings after another, go up in smoke. Paddy asks Ike's help in bringing the arsonist to justice before he, Paddy, is forced to do it himself.
While working for Paddy Doyle, Ike is asked to investigate business owner Eddie Gill. His wife is suspicious and wants Eddie followed. Ike confirms her suspicions as he sees Eddie with a sixteen-year-old girl who worked for him. Eddie takes the girl to a night club and a motel.
Ike's investigation of these cases takes him around the city and his descriptions are vivid and timely. I particularly enjoyed the sequence when Ike was at a dance club where Stagger Lee was playing and words from the song melted in with the action.
I enjoy this kind of story with good action and knowing that I'm experiencing the events without a psychological approach to the character's actions.
The dialogue is excellent and reminds me of the great Raymond Chandler's P.I. Philip Marlow. Neither P.I. takes a back seat to threats and they get the job done at all costs. It's easy to visualize what is happening when the reader is given words like this, "We looked at each other, she tightened her eyes, and I knew she was talking the truth. Whatever it was between us was roaring down the tracks and it knocked my bitterness out of the way like so much horse feathers."
Yeah, baby!
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