Con Lehane

I felt like I was reading classic Noir, which is my favorite genre. Lehane makes jokes throughout the novel about this. When Mick Mulligan, blacklisted animator turned private detective, introduces himself, people respond, "Oh, like Phillip Marlow". Perfect. This novel, told in the first person, has all the elements of a Raymond Chandler novel. There is the innocent man on death row, the FBI informers, the pretty girls, red baiting, Union organizing, and the mob enforcers beating up Mick as show more his moves doggedly closer to the truth. Perfect. show less

If you're one of those people (like me) who enjoys mysteries with a bit of an extra element, you'll enjoy The Red Scare Murders. The extra element in this case is the anti-communist fervor of the early 1950s McCarthy era.

Our detective, Mick Mulligan, used to be an animator at Disney studios. He wasn't important enough to have his name appear on the credits at a film's end, but he liked his work, it came with a good salary, and he could dream of future, greater accomplishments. But then, when show more asked to name names, he refused and quickly found himself out of work, divorced, and with extremely limited time and contact with his daughter.

So he moved to New York City to become a private detective. Why not? Mulligan finds himself working for the city's fledgling taxi cab union. One of the bosses has been murdered—shot in the chest. One of that boss's drivers, a Black man, Harold Williams, has been framed for the crime. Once the jury hears Williams is a communist organizer there's no need for additional evidence; this is the kind of man many want off the streets—or dead.

It was no surprise when Williams was sentenced to be executed by electric chair. Now, the execution is two weeks away and the union wants to do something for Williams—though nothing that would draw the wrong sort of attention. Mulligan's job is to exculpate Williams before the execution date rolls around.

There are plenty of folks who'd want that cab company boss dead, but no solid evidence against any of them. At the same time that Mulligan is attempting to narrow the list of possible suspects, he also finds himself in contact with both union organizers and gangsters, who see an opportunity in the drive for unionization. Mulligan finds himself threatened, walking picket lines, dating the sister of one of the union men, and visiting the boss's now-very-wealthy wife. That's a lot to pack in, especially when the clock is ticking on an execution.

My one complaint about this title is just that it moved rather slowly. Each of the fourteen days is described in great detail—morning, afternoon, evening, late night. But the longer I kept reading, the more I wanted to keep reading. Those fourteen days felt shorter and shorter as the novel progressed.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own. show less

Raymond Ambler is a librarian at the New York Public Library, curator of the Crime Fiction Collection, and an amateur sleuth. The bartender at the nearby Library Tavern, favorite watering hole of at least some of the librarians, is a good friend, Brian McNulty. Another friend is Mike Cosgrove, an NYPD homicide detective. Adele Morgan is another librarian, a friend, and a potential love interest, if Ambler can figure out how human relationships work.

Ambler also has joint custody of his show more grandson, Johnny. His son, John, is in prison for second degree murder. Johnny's mother is deceased (apparently unrelated to John's case--hey, it's book three, and the first one I've read.) So Ambler has a lot on his plate without getting involved in a murder at a local hotel, that McNulty wants him to solve. But why? It seems a woman called Shannon Darling is involved.

Ambler and Adele first saw her at the Library Tavern, drunk, wild, and attracting men she didn't necessarily want to attract. The next time, she came into the Crime Fiction reading room, saying she was doing research on women crime writers. In particular, Jane Galloway, a favorite of Ambler's, who has recently donated her papers to the library. Yet Shannon Darling seems to have no idea how to do research, which seems inconsistent with her claim that she's a writer.

When she become connected to a murder, Ambler doesn't want to get involved. When it becomes clear that she and McNulty are involved, and worse yet, when the two of them disappear together, Ambler's resistance remains strong. Well, pretty strong.

When Shannon is murdered and McNulty is the prime, no, the only suspect, that resistance crumbles.

Shannon turns out to have another name, and a complicated past, and a connection to Jane Galloway. And a daughter about the same age as Johnny.

It's a pretty interesting plot, but I found Ambler hard to warm up to. He's not an unpleasant person; just, for me, not an engaging one. He has no sense about human relationships at all, even with his grandson, whom he loves and is devoted to. He's maddening even to his friends, and has no idea why.

The narrator is also--not good. All the women sound like hysterical ditzes, even when the author intends them to sound intelligent and strong. It's a disservice to the book.

It is, nevertheless, an interesting mystery, and others are likely to find Ambler more likeable, or at least more engaging, than I do. But I would recommend reading, not listening.

I bought this audiobook. show less

What dedicated crime fiction lover can resist a murder in a library? I certainly couldn't, but as I read this book, I found a collection of mixed blessings.

The descriptions of the library are absolutely delicious. They made me want to hop a plane and go there immediately. Another thing I savored was Lehane's skill with characterization; the interactions between characters and the observations they make about each other are excellent. In particular the budding relationship between Ambler's show more fellow amateur sleuth Adele and Johnny, a young boy she at first believes to be homeless, is touching and makes these two come to life.

I wish I could say I had the same warm fuzzies about the main character, Raymond Ambler, but I'm afraid he put me off when he felt it was only fair to withhold evidence from Cosgrove, his friend in the police force, because Cosgrove didn't give him each and every detail of the murder investigation. To be honest, it made me wonder what the name of Ambler's home planet was.

The pace of Murder at the 42nd Street Library was slow at times, and at others, it bounced around so much that I felt as though I was inside a pinball machine. Another thing I didn't care for was the deus ex machina concerning a child's parentage provided at the end by Lehane.

You could almost call this book a cozy, but it's meatier than that, and although I loved Lehane's powers of description and characterization, Ambler didn't quite win me over. But that doesn't mean he won't be able to charm you. show less