Customer Reviews

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: A Sam McCain Mystery

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While in the end I wrote a generally positive review of the previous mystery in this series, "Everybody's Somebody's Fool," the review nevertheless had a bit of a tossed-off and dismissive quality to it, which maybe wasn't quite fair. After all, a light, breezy, engaging mystery story isn't easy to produce, even if the author makes it LOOK easy. And this story, like the earlier one I read, is a light, breezy, engaging mystery story that I easily recommend.

Three plotlines quickly move along in the story's 252 pages (I read the paperback edition): a mystery story involving a dead woman found in a local bigwig's basement; the dramatic escalation of the Cuban missile crisis, which serves as the story's backdrop; and the romantic trials and tribulations of investigator and lead character Sam McCain. Mr. Gorman skillfully bounces between these various story elements, and also effectively intertwines them.

I also liked how, despite the story's 1962 setting, the author doesn't hit us over the head with dense details of the period, and endless observations of that time. Too much of that sort of thing often severely slows down the pacing of period thrillers, but that doesn't happen here. Mr. Gorman keeps the story front and center, and the period stuff secondary. For, while there's certainly a place for period mysteries that go on for 500 pages and also function as historical documents of the period (Caleb Carr's "The Alienist" and James Ellroy's "L.A. Confidential" spring to mind here), it's also nice to have a period mystery series that strives to deliver a light, fast read, too.

As of this writing, there are six mysteries in the Sam McCain series, and I've read the last two. I definitely plan to seek out the first four book in this series, and hope he writes more.

It's 1962, Russia and the U.S. are lurching toward war over the Cuban Missile Crisis, and detective/lawyer Sam McCain two strange offers in one day. First, a stranger offers him way too much money to deliver a package. Second, one of the Iowa town's rich men--a candidate for Governor, hires Sam to take a look in his bomb shelter. It turns out that the two offers are interconnected--the dead body in the bomb shelter is the woman Sam was supposed to deliver the package to. The police have no problems with the case--the candidate must have killed his mistress. But Sam knows that reality is often more complicated than the police let on.

Sam mixes noire detective grit with a bit of sensitivity as he tries to track down other candidates for the murder--and there are plenty. The evil brother and the dead woman's other boyfriends are additional candidates. When he's not busy detecting, he tries to straighten out his own life. The woman he always loved is thinking about getting a divorce--and is interested in Sam for the first time. Adding to the complexity, the woman who was always in love with Sam is getting a divorce too--and she wants Sam too. Then there's the candidate's pretty daughter. It makes for an interesting life.

Author Ed Gorman brings the early 1960s to life in a convincing but sympathetic manner. Small-town bousterism, hypocritical morality, and narrow-minded snobbery are all there, but so is a certain warmth and caring--heightened by the impending end of the world that the Cuban crisis threatens.

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO mixes some nice twists with engaging characters and some insights into the world--pretty good for a short detective mystery. I recommend this one.

Gorman is fast becoming one of my new favorites. Books are writted in the golden age of detective stories.