Chicago cop Gus Carson was bad, crooked, and dangerous before he went to war. But, having survived a Japanese submarine attack in the Pacic, he returns a changed man. So it is plain lousy luck that hes with a pretty hooker in a brothel when a gunman murders two people there. Old habits die hard, and Carson takes the gunman down, saving the state of Illinois the cost of a trial...and gets suspended from the police department for his good deed. Now, with few prospects and no cash, Carson accepts a job that smells shy from jump street: an aspiring politician hires him to nd a kidnapped black racketeer. The hunt will send Carson on a dangerous ride through the city, where his life soon isnt worth the price of a beer. And for those who dont remember the 1940s, thats ve cents. A page-turning noir detective story, 46, Chicago proves Monroe to be a new master of the genre.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Crime fiction readers who insist that the good guys win and the bad guys lose, and that you ought to at least be able to tell the two apart, should steer a wide course around Steve Monroe's '46, Chicago. Moral compromise and relativism are the very foundations of this somber yet compulsively driving yarn about power and greed and the corruption they engender.
Gus Carson used to be as mendacious and brutal a cop as the Windy City could produce. But after barely surviving a World War II Japanese submarine attack in the Pacific, he's turned positively respectable. "No fights, no bribes, no extortion," his superior recalls, approvingly, "not even a restaurant owner complaining that you demanded free doughnuts and coffee." Then one night, Carson shoots a black man who's just killed a white lawyer in a brothel, and he's suspended from the force--just in time to go to work for a Republican mayoral hopeful, who promises him reinstatement and $500 if he can find a kidnapped black racketeer named Ed Jones. Sounds straightforward enough, except that Carson suspects the attorney's death and the Jones case are connected. To whose benefit, though? And how do these crimes relate to an underworld struggle for control of Chicago gambling?
As he did in his first novel, '57, Chicago, Monroe brings distinction to a fairly conventional noir plot. His juxtaposition of caviar-class white and worker-class black cultures adds depth to this occasionally violent drama, his exposure of Carson's conscience is patiently and convincingly done, and some of the dialogue here is sharp enough to cut lips. '46 Chicago treads where more practiced detective novelists, such as Max Allan Collins, have already been, but still leaves tracks worth following. --J. Kingston Pierce
From Publishers Weekly
Tough-talking copper Gus Carson has been trying to walk the straight and narrow ever since he got back to Chicago after a tour in WWII, but a visit to a whorehouse proves his undoing when he kills a man who's just murdered a john and his gal and gets suspended from the force. Steve Monroe's classic hard-boiler follows Carson through the city's underbelly in pursuit of a kidnapped swindler (who's also on the payroll of a political mover and shaker) before he uncovers the truth in a veritable bloodbath in '46, Chicago.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WINDY CITY CONFIDENTIAL,
By
This review is from: '46, Chicago (Hardcover)
We took the kids to a local dollar store to buy our Christmas gifts and I thought I'd head off something really cheesy by grabbing a few books for them to get me. I'd never heard of Steve Monroe but the dust jacket made this one sound at least readable and it proved to be much better than that. The cover blurbs compare him to James Ellroy and that seems apt. The hero of the novel--less anti-heroic than some of Mr. Ellroy's characters--is Chicago cop Gus Carson. As a marine in WWII he was very nearly killed in a ship-sinking reminiscent of that of the USS Indianapolis and saw nearly all the men around him die in horrible ways as they floated in shark-infested waters awaiting rescue. After being orphaned he was raised by a crooked cop and became his protege, but, having survived the war, he's determined to correct at least some of the errors of his ways. So, when he's suspended from the force after a shooting in a whorehouse, he's hired to do some investigating by a wealthy and politically ambitious Republican businessman, who gets a less pliable gumshoe than he'd bargained on.
The combination of a dirty past and a relatively clean present affords Mr. Monroe a protagonist who's plenty tough but easy to root for and he serves up the tale with plenty of bark on. It's a very good modern riff on classic noir.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enthralling Book,
By Mike (Annapolis, MD) - See all my reviews
This review is from: '46, Chicago (Hardcover)
Steve Monroe sends the reader back to gritty 1946 Chicago for a pageturning who-done-it. The combination of street slang and tangible, realistic characters pulls you in won't let you go. After the plot gets moving, it moves at a pretty good pace.
'46, Chicago has a distinct feel of The Great Gatsby with a bit of Road to Perdition. The dialogue and action are consistent with what you would expect from the city streets of Chicago. This book is an excellent read. It's neither too long nor too short -- worth every minute you spend reading it.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Estelman meets Pelecanos,
By John Schmutz (Glen Cove, NY United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: '46, Chicago (Hardcover)
If you like gritty city tough guys Chicago '46 is for you. It has the taste of inner city grime in every bite. As George Pelecanos flays D.C.'s skin open to reveal the infernal workings of the city's walking wounded, down and out junkies and brown bag alchoholics, Monroe shows us the stomach if not the heart of post-war Chicago. Monroe echoes Estelman in Gus Carson as a post military angel with skinned knuckles and part time conscience. All in all Monroe has built an extraordinary foundation for multi-volume series. Dave Robichaux and Earl Swagger watch out!
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