Very Bad Men (2011)

I guess I am with the masses at 4 stars. The plot is interesting with a vast array of characters and a vast array of murders.. It reads easy and there are a satisfying series of plot twists. But the author rehashes events from earlier in the book too much - (How many times do we have to hear about that bank robbery 17 years ago? Yes, I know no one could identify the driver) Don't get me wrong, it really is a good mystery and will read the author's first book but it was a tad long. (400 pages+) ( )

“We all want to be known. To be seen for who we really are.”

This is the premise of Harry Dolan’s hardboiled sequel to Bad Things Happen. David Loogan is no longer the shadowy isolated figure he was in the first book and has managed to move on from his past… almost. He has built up a life for himself in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Detective Waishkey and her 16 year-old-daughter, Sarah… almost. A great many things about his life are a near thing.

Loogan is now editing the mystery magazine Grey Streets, which was the site of his troubles in the last book and, quite literally, where the new ones begin. A manuscript with a killer hook (sorry – the pun was irresistible) is left on the doorstep of his office describing the murder of two men and ending with the threat of another. The murderer is working his way through a hit list, taking revenge on a robbery that ended badly 17 years ago. Callie Spencer’s father is an ex-cop who was paralysed during the crime. She is now a senate candidate and is desperately trying to keep old secrets hidden. Callie is somehow involved in the recent murders, but is she simply a motive for a madman’s actions or a participant?

Although Dolan mentions the nightmares that Loogan still suffers from, I did miss the darkness of Loogan’s character in Bad Things Happen. Very Bad Men is told in the present tense, from Loogan’s point of view, yet is nevertheless interspersed with scenes told in the third person, which he can’t possibly have witnessed. This may not bother anyone else, but I did find it a bit confusing. I suppose this decision could be explained away by the fact that Loogan also writes short stories so he may have embellished his account with what he learns afterwards, but for the most part it simply didn’t make sense. The narrative tone was simply at its strongest when told through Loogan’s voice.

That having been said, the narrative is deliciously rife with guilt and dry one-liners. The terse prose is reminiscent of some of the best hardboiled classics. I loved that Dolan didn’t let his protagonist stagnate after the end of the first book, but allowed Loogan to progress naturally and build plausible relationships with characters the reader has already come to care for. Dolan is a master of pacing and is always one step ahead of the reader.
Aside from a few weaknesses, it’s a great read. ( )

It took a while to get to this book, which I won as an early reviewers on Library Thing. This was a well written mystery, which deals with the revival of a 17 year old bank robbery. Someone is killing the perpetrators of the crime and it is left to be solved by David Loogan. He is an editor of a mystery magazine. While this is the second book dealing with the mysteries being solved by Loogan, this is my first book by the author, Harry Dolan. Despite it being the second book, I did not feel as if I was missing any important background information. While this was a very enjoyable book; well written with an intricate plot, it became a little tedious when the protagonist, David Loogan, began to implicate everyone in the crime. The conclusion of the book was very unsatisfying, as stated by other reviewers. While the crime was presumably solved, justice was not accomplished. I will not go out of my way to read other books by this author. In addition, the rationale underlying the crime and its inaccuracies did not really stand up on its own. ( )

The protagonist of Very Bad Men, the second book in Harry Dolan's excellent series, is the editor of a mystery magazine and so his narration is full of asides about publishing:

I have a theory about editing. You can do anything you want with a manuscript, you can rewrite it line by line, as long as your handwriting is very small and very neat. If the pages look tidy, the author'll go along.

and the sort of information one picks up by reading a lot of mysteries:

I read somewhere once that the impact of a bullet is usually not enough to knock you down. If it doesn't stop your heart or blow out your knee, or something along those lines, there's no reason for you to fall. But people do anyway, because they think they're supposed to. They've seen too many westerns and cop shows. When the guy in the cowboy hat or the fedora gets shot, he falls over.

So over they go.

I fell...In my defense, he pushed me.

In Very Bad Men, Loogan receives a manuscript telling him a story of a series of murders. But this time it isn't fiction; two of the men in the story have already been killed. Loogan sets out to make sure that the third murder doesn't happen. The plot twists and turns and grows more complicated by the chapter but, while complex, it never runs out of control. And Loogan himself is my favorite kind of hero; kind and ordinary and occasionally misled. ( )

http://www.book-blog.com/2011/12/dolan-harry-very-bad-men.html ( )