The Ancient Rain [Hardcover]

Domenic Stansberry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2008

Edgar Award winner and master of contemporary noir Domenic Stansberry returns to San Francisco’s North Beach and Dante Mancuso, the dark PI who grew up on its tough streets.

After a career with a shadowy security firm with interests on both sides of the law, Dante has come home to put all that behind him and has gone to work for a private investigator. A call alerts him early one morning that Bill Owens, a fellow PI, has been charged with a notorious thirty-year-old killing. Bill was involved in a political group in the late sixties, which among other pranks and small-time crimes, held up a bank. Except that time, an innocent bystander was shot and killed. To clear Owens of these charges, Dante will have to retrace the original investigation through San Francisco’s radical underground and bring in the man who was pulling the strings.

The Ancient Rain is a chilling novel from one of crime fiction’s finest. Stansberry spools out a narrative filled with deceit and betrayal, and in his hands the line between justice and revenge is razor sharp.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Edgar-winner Stansberry's compelling third mystery to feature PI Dante Mancuso (after 2006's The Big Boom), the former San Francisco cop becomes entangled in a cold case surrounding the unintentional shooting death of a woman during a bank robbery involving a group of militant political anarchists in 1976. In a paranoia-fueled post 9-11 America with new antiterror laws, a federal prosecutor with a deep-rooted grudge arrests Bill Owens, an acquaintance of Mancuso's who was the prime suspect in the 1976 murder. Hired to help exonerate Owens, Mancuso tracks down individuals linked to the original case—aging conspirators of a once radical San Francisco underground populated by activists, freethinkers and street poets. But instead of finding justice and some kind of resolution, Mancuso learns firsthand what it feels like to become a victim in a much larger drama being played out between the government and those that oppose its policies. Equal parts contemporary crime fiction and dark, existential poetry, this novel should win Stansberry new fans. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* The third volume in Stansberry’s Dante Mancuso series again draws effectively on the rich history of San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. Chasing the Dragon (2004) looked back to the area’s Italian roots, while The Big Boom (2006) covered the more recent dot-com era. We split the difference here with a gripping noir mystery that takes its plot from events during the radical 1970s, the time of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Mancuso becomes involved in a politically charged case when a fellow PI is arrested suddenly and charged with the murder of an innocent bystander during an SLA-like bank robbery more than 30 years previously. Attempting to track back the initial investigation of the crime, Mancuso resurrects old wounds and simmering resentments as he ponders whether his friend is telling him the truth. It’s a solid enough mystery, oozing the kind of palpable North Beach atmosphere that fans of the series have come to expect, but what makes Stansberry stand out from the crowd is the genuine noir sensibility he brings to his work, the overwhelming feeling that things must go wrong. The last paragraph of this fine novel, reflecting on the “old rain” that keeps falling, even though it doesn’t clean anything, captures the core of Stansberry’s view perfectly, its eloquence suggesting Joyce describing the snow at the end of his celebrated story “The Dead.” --Bill Ott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (April 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312364539
• ISBN-13: 978-0312364533
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,441,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars superb urban noir, April 19, 2008

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ancient Rain (Hardcover)

San Francisco Private Investigator Bill Owens asks his colleague Dante Mancuso of Cicero Investigations for a favor; keep his two frightened children, fourteen years old Kate and ten years old Zeke safe while he is charged with murder; his wife attorney Jill is in Chicago. Twenty-seven years ago, Bill was part of a radical group, the Symbonise Liberation Army that killed Eleanor Younger while robbing a bank. Eleanor had left her eleven years old daughter Elise in the car and so she witnessed the murder of her mom. She accuses Bill Owens who came out without a mask of her mom's murder.

The Feds go all out to nail Bill while his backers hire Dante to investigate. As he makes inquires to a homicide that occurred thirty years ago and is colder than the tundra except for the eye witness; Dante begins to close in on the puppeteer who manipulated what happened then and what is happening now.

The third Mancuso private investigative tale (see BIG BOOM and CHASING THE DRAGON) is a superb urban noir that uses history to include the Symbonise Liberation Army of Patty Heart fame and much more like the title coming from a poem by Bob Kaufman. Bill pegs Dante as the perfect person to protect his kids as he knows that the mane never let's anything go; and he proves totally right especially with a late twist. From the moment that Bill is stopped on the bay Bridge with the cops ignoring his two kids sitting in the back seat in stark terror as they are inconsequential to the arrest until the climatic end, fans will read this strong suspenseful tale in one shocking sitting.

Harriet Klausner

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best post-911 novel yet, April 16, 2011

By 

jjmccabe - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ancient Rain (Hardcover)

In this novel, Mr. Stansberry explores the USA's post-911 response
through the lens of 70s era "terrorism."
His careful language and supremely successful structural, coupled
with deep characterization gives us a book that should be read, and read, and read, and read, and read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyed it, April 10, 2009

By 

Chuck Emerson (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ancient Rain (Hardcover)

If you like intensely deep characterizaton to go with a plot that will make you think, then read anything by Domenic Stansberry. This is no exception.