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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A cut above most murder mysteries, May 25, 2008
In Blood Alley, Tom Coffey (The Serpent's Club, 1999; Miami Twilight, 2001) has written a powerful novel about a brutal murder in Manhattan and the Machiavellian financial shenanigans of those who worship mammon.
Patrick Grimes, 23, a lapsed Irish Catholic, is a rookie rewrite man for The New York Examiner. A decorated war hero--he was awarded the Bronze Star for fierce fighting against the Germans in Tuscany, north of the Arno River--he is "not blessed with faith but cursed by skepticism." In the story that unfolds, he has good reasons for not trusting those in authority.
In Blood Alley, a grimy, squalid. and blighted stretch of slaughterhouses, breweries, tenements. and flophouses wedged along the East River, the body of a rich young woman, Amanda Price, is discovered, and an innocent black man, William Anderson, is railroaded as her killer.
Post-war New York City, a great citadel of capitalism that boasts "the best police force money can buy," is a hotbed of rampant racism and corruption.
In seeking to establish Anderson's innocence, Grimes battles an array of ruthless, power-hungry adversaries, and puts his own life--and sanity--at risk.
Blood Alley is a cut above most murder mysteries. Grimes is quite the philosopher, a man who, in spite of his pessimism, is driven by a love of justice and struggles against all odds to find the truth.
The disturbing outcome of this novel, echoing the poet's assessment that "the world is too much with us, late and soon," reveals the fine line between cynicism and realism.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very retro, very noir, July 30, 2008
I've never read anything by Tom Coffey before. This book is unusual for a number of reasons. One odd one is that there's no dust jacket, for some reason: instead, the illustration you see above is printed right on the cover. Second, it's from a publisher I've never heard of before called the Toby Press. And thirdly, it's set during the era just post-World War II, and the author manages to capture the era, as far as I can tell, very very well. The result is a fascinating tale of betrayal, intrigue, and murder, set in New York City.
Patrick Grimes is a war-hero reporter, not really comfortable yet in his job as a "rewrite man" on the night shift. When a call comes in to the newsroom announcing the discovery of a dead body, Grimes and a photographer go to the scene and find themselves looking at a dead socialite who shouldn't have been in the neighborhood. The police soon show up and it's clear that the fix is in: they promptly arrest the local night watchman, who's black, and beat a confession out of him. Grimes is outraged, and decides to try and find out what happened.
This is a very good story, clean and swift and intelligent, and well-written. There's enough violence and sex to interest the popcorn and soda crowd, and there's enough political intrigue and cameos by real individuals (Rockefeller's name appears repeatedly; so does mobster Frank Costello's) to make it interesting for the more cerebral among us. I really liked the story too: it has overtones of Chinatown, but is more believable. I would recommend this book to most who are interested in mysteries.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Smart and brisk, October 3, 2008
Tom Coffey's novel, "Blood Alley," doesn't waste a word. The story starts in post-WW2 New York City as a young newspaper reporter gets involved in a murder in which the prime suspect obviously is innocent. The main character tries to do the "right thing" and investigate, but soon bumps up against forces that are larger than he ever could have imagined. The plot jumps from one page to the next. I'm no expert on this type of book, but I know what I like and this book hit all of my checkmarks. It conjures up a sense of place and time nicely, has a story that isn't too simple but doesn't get the reader lost, and is, at its root, believable. This is definitely worth your time, especially if you like crime stories.
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