At the City's Edge

I'm almost halfway through this book and I'm setting it aside. It's a competently written thriller and it confronts some of the realities of gangs in Chicago but I'm not finding it compelling.

The main male character, an ex-soldier who decides to take on the gangs and find his brother's killer all by himself doesn't seem real to me. I'm not invested in what happens to him.

The rest feels familiar in a have-I read-this-already? way that is OK but doesn't make me want to know what happens next.

It would make an OK movie in of the '21 Bridges' type of action movies that Amazon likes

Summary: When a bar is burned down, it is definitely arson and probably related to the increased gang activity of the neighborhood. The only victim leaves behind family that finds the truth behind what the gangs are doing.

The Take Away: The layering Sakey does is amazing. He takes awful truths about the inner city, the Iraq War, and what happens to good people caught up in both. the romance between Jason and the police officer assigned to the case is tough to swallow; they don't seem as much like lovers as long time friends. The corruption, however, is utterly believable.

As much as I wouldn't want to believe that our leaders would supply and inflame a gang war, it happens in foreign countries. I'm confident Sakey didn't just choose show more Jason's background solely because of the current events. It's yet another layer he slides into the story so neatly, one almost doesn't realize it. show less

***** Potential spoiler alert ***** very enjoyable, personally consider it a step up from his first novel "the blade itself" and given that i really liked that this one is excellent, some things that I consider were portrayed really well were the love of parent to child (michael palmer & billy) plus the terror / disconnection of a former solder reinserted into standard society (jason palmer). that said my one minor quibble would be that I didn't rate the portrayal of billy's reaction to the death of his father michael - felt the option of shock and numbness rather than overwhelming grief incorporating tears, rage, loss was the easy out and unconvincing in the circumstances particularly where the child has previously lost a mother and show more now a father as well.... show less

Jason Palmer is recently arrived back from Iraq. One day he is jogging and a car stops and someone want to force him into the car and discuss what his brother, Michael, is doing. Jason disarms the men and leaves them wondering who they tried to strong arm.
Michael is a crusader. His wife was killed by a teenager in a stolen car and now Michael works for Washington Matthew's gang recovery program.
Michael doesn't tell Jason more, but soon after, he's murdered and his bar burned down.
Michael's 8 year old son, Billy, saw the killers and the next night 3 men break into Michale's home looking for Billy but Jason hears them and they escape.
Officer Elena Cruz is a street cop and takes an interest in the case. One night both she and Jason are show more tipped off that the man who killed Michael will be at a meeting where they're selling drugs and weapons to gangs. What happens that night sets the scene for the remainder of the story.
Sakey is a good writer. The characters have flaws but are believable and Jason, as a character is well developed as is his relationship with his 8 year old nephew, Billy.

The story didn't cover any new ground and didn't hold my attention. show less

This was a good book, not great, but good. The flow of the story was smooth and the characters were okay. I really liked the author's previous work, "The Blade Itself", along with another one by him, "Good People" better than this one.

This story seemed a bit stale, the plot about "dirty" cops, bad politicians, gangs, money, murder....has been done so many times, it would take something really outstanding to merit a higher score from this reviewer.

If you just want something good to read, this one will do. But I would recommend the previous two mentioned over this one if you are looking for something more than mediocre.

This book is not as good as Marcus Sakey's first book, The Blade Itself. The characters and plot seem stale and recycled, and the story is resolved by my pet peeve - bad guys telling the good guys exactly why they did what they did just long enough for the good guys to figure out how to escape.

3.5 stars

My blog post about this book is at this link.