Customer Reviews

The Chicago Way (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an entertaining, good book, but the buzz and reviews around it overstate the case a bit. I wouldn't call it great, or classic.

The plot is fairly formulaic, and not just in the sense that it follows the classic 'hard boiled' narrative structure. Readers of fiction in the genre will find that it holds few surprises(Raymond Chandler meets CSI meets David Mamet?). I found the characters to be derivative... for example the ex cop private eye who was wronged AND has a dark secret AND "boxed for money" AND reads the classics. (Marlowe meets Spenser meets Sam Spade meets Poirot?)

The "sense of place" that several reviewers have mentioned positively felt more gimmicky than novel. The setting and the story don't really seem interdependent. The book could have easily been called the Philadelphia Way, the Boston Way, the Brooklyn Way, etc, by changing a few pages of text. By contrast, novels like James Ellroy's "LA Quartet" really couldn't have been sent anywhere else.

I finished the book not really caring about the characters; and possessed of an intense desire to re-read some of the source material.

Chicago PI Michael Kelly is sitting in his office, attempting to compile a list of the ten greatest moments in Cubs history, when his ex-partner, John Gibbons, walks through the door. After exchanging pleasantries with Kelly, Gibbons gets down to business---he's come to hire Kelly to look into a case that's haunted the retired police officer for nearly a decade, the rape of a young woman that he maintains was covered up by his superiors. Intrigued by Gibbons' story, Kelly agrees to take the case.

Hours later, Gibbons is found dead by the Navy Pier, shot twice in the stomach. Now a person of interest in the Gibbons homicide, Kelly has added incentive to solve the case the dead man hired him to investigate. Kelly throws himself into the investigation, but answers are elusive--to bring Gibbons' killer to justice, Kelly must dig deep into the mystery surrounding the assault of a young girl named Elaine Remington, a cold case neither the killer nor the police are interested in reopening.

How much you ultimately enjoy The Chicago Way will depend on your expectations going in. If you're looking for something new and original, this may not be your book. If you're looking for a prime example of a hard boiled crime novel, by all means pick this up--Harvey certainly knows his way around that turf, carefully exploring and exploiting all the traditions of that genre through well-crafted, vigorous prose. The PI is tough and intrepid and witty, the dames slinky and dangerous, and the bad guys are menacing--if you enjoy that sort of thing, then The Chicago Way is definitely right up your (back) alley.

THE CHICAGO WAY has been so heavily hyped that I was expecting a crime novel as good as Raymond Chandler's work or even early Robert Parker. But in my opinion, this doesn't even come close.

Michael Harvey's a stylish writer, and writes in a clean style that I normally admire in a crime author. However, this book focuses on snappy dialogue at the expense of everything else. The plot is formulaic, and meanders around quite a bit before rushing toward a rather implausible conclusion. Many of the characters lack depth, and I didn't end up caring for anybody in this novel very much.

In short, THE CHICAGO WAY consists of a lot of sizzle, but not very much steak. The prose is punchy and fun, but that's not a substitute for strong storytelling. This novel never engaged me in the end, so I can't recommend it. Still, I think Harvey has enough talent that I would be willing to give his next book a try.

If you're looking for a good PI mystery, I would suggest two other recent titles: LITTLE GIRL LOST by Richard Aleas and BIG CITY, BAD BLOOD by Sean Chercover. Both these novels are very well written, but have much stronger plots and characters.

If you're looking for a reasonably entertaining and utterly disposable modern crime novel, this should suffice. As the debut novel from the co-creator of the TV show "Cold Case Files," it should come as no surprise that the Chicago-set story is sparked by the reinvestigation of a buried old crime, and that advances in forensic science play a large role in the plot. The tone is neo-hard boiled, with the author striving for the stylish patter of Raymond Chandler, and generally sounding forced. What might work in the mouth of Bogart generally sounds contrived in the mouth of Michael Kelly, the book's Irish-American ex-cop protagonist.

Kelly is a pretty blah hero, a cardboard collage of hundreds of other fictional private-eyes: Ex-cop? Check. Best detective on the force? Check. Railroaded out of the force? Check. A manly man? Check. Grew up tough? Check. Irish-American or Italian-American? Check. Knows how to box? Check. No apparent good friends? Check. Attractive ladies all over him? Check. Random cultural quick? Check (he likes to read ancient Greek). And so on. There's nothing to really distinguish him from hundreds of his fictional fellow detectives, and nothing about him is likely to linger in the reader's head once the final page is turned. (Except maybe that he drinks tea.)

The story kicks off with a surprise visit from Kelly's old partner (also retired from the force), who is looking into an old unsolved case of his. Only the rape and stabbing isn't just unsolved, it's been erased, and the victim has come back years later wanting to know why. This is a reasonably interesting premise with one major flaw -- the perp has to either be someone relatively powerful, or connected to someone with the access and juice to sweep a major crime completely under the rug. Since there's only one character who fits that bill, it's pretty easy to figure out that he/she is deeply involved, thus robbing the story of a good deal of its dramatic tension. (And in one of a length list of coincidences, it also doesn't help that Kelly knows this person.)

Rather conveniently (since DNA figures prominently) Kelly's childhood buddy just happens to be a forensic guru with full lab skills, recently assigned to an interagency Rape Task Force. This friendship allows the story to continue, as Kelly milks her for all kinds of information and help. The coincidences and connections swirling around Kelly just multiply over the course of the story, getting increasingly hard to believe. And once a death-row serial killer enters the plot, things just get too ridiculous to take seriously. The author struggles mightily to toss various red herrings in the reader's path in a clumsy attempt to preserve a few "gotcha" twists about the identity of various culprits, but these prove to be totally ineffective. I don't read crime stories trying to figure out "whodunnit" before the detective can, but in this case, the major elements are pretty obvious.

In sum, the book passes the time easily enough, but it breaks no new ground in any direction. It may be that in subsequent books, Kelly will develop a little depth, or that Chicago will be more than a flimsy backlot set for the series, or that the author will move into more complex and plausible plotting, but it's doubtful I'll be picking any up to find out.

As another reviewer said, just can't understand the hype about this book. Flat characters, improbable plot and, above all else, a sense that the seemingly effete author is trying to step into a tough world of Chicago cops and criminals he just doesn't get. Further, even Grisham is complex in comparison, which alone should be enough to warn off most readers.

The book also contains a considerable number of factual errors about the city of Chicago-though acknowleged in the "Note about the author" section these are distracting & needless (unless you are just plain lazy on your research?) and a further detraction from a book that just can't afford any more weaknesses.

In short, avoid-at least until the used paperback is available. The novels of Richard Whittingham do a much better job of portraying the Chicago streets.

While in agreement with some other reviewers that this isn't "the greatest story ever told", in my view, among all those "who done its" out there, this book was as good as many, especially so being the author's first novel.

It's a Spenser-like (Robert Parker beginning and a fast moving pace. The main character is a former Chicago police officer, turned detective, who is contacted by a long-ago associate from the police force. The contact is murdered suddenly. The story takes off from there with many references to locations in Chicago making it more interesting for those of us who may have lived there once.

Were all of the "scenes" totally realistic? No. But which are so and in which books more and more these days? There's enough witty humor to make it enjoyable but not so much that it becomes trite. The main character has long-term friends who are key characters and regrettably, there is what seems to be the "requisite drop-dead beautiful woman who immediately connects with the main character" (a negative in my mind). However, not all characters end up as they do in the idealistic world of many other authors these days.

It's a good story for what it is - a work of fiction, ex-cop turned private-eye trying to solve a complex case. As a result of reading this, I ordered another one by Harvey.

For this reader Michael Harvey's freshman venture into the hard-boiled crime drama genre is more James M. Cain than Dashiell Hammett and the hero is more Dana Andrews in Laura than Humphrey Bogart. If compared to the noir movies of the 40's the reader is left with a picture of Robert Mitchum or Sterling Hayden as the protagonist Mike Kelly, Barbara Stanwyck as Elaine Remington and Lauren Bacall as Diane Lindsey. Today casting directors would probably give us Gerard Butler, Cameron Diaz, and Nicole Kidman in those parts.

The story is a fascinating patchwork of Chicago settings from the Drake Hotel ballroom to the back alleys of the windy city "burbs" with bleak pessimistic observations on everything from serial killers, politics, race and gender to pondering observations of ancient Greek philosophers.

Unlike many writers today who feel obligated to fill 500 plus pages with entire chapters describing the color of the sky, Harvey's background in journalism and television documentary production is obvious in his writing style. His sparse "who, what, where, when, why and how" approach to storytelling is a good thing. He hooks you from chapter one, succinctly gives you the information you need while moving the story along at a healthy clip. Things never get boring and the plot never lags as we play "armchair shamus" to Mike Kelly's real deal.

This is a better than average debut and I look forward to another walk on Chicago's wild side in the company of PI Mike Kelly.

3 1/2 stars

I just loved every second of reading this debut novel by one of the writers of the "Cold Case" TV series. The dialogue is in the style of the Raymond Chandler type of detective stories, sparse, snappy and right to the point. Kelly is an ex cop, now operating as a private detective after being framed by a corrupt DA's office and becomes involved with a glamorous TV news reporter with whom he has a brief fling. When the body of a former friend of Kelly's from police days is found, only a few days after contacting him for the first time in years, Kelly takes it upon himself to sort things out..his way! It's a quick, exciting read which takes the reader into the underworld of Chicago's crime families and when his childhood friend, Nicole is murdered, Kelly leaves no stone unturned in his quest to find her killer and avenge her death.

Quite fond of Chicago, and Harvey gives us a good feel for the city. He mentions places both obscure and famous but does so in a way that suggests that he actually knows them, not just the predictable list that makes it "seem" like Chicago - a city that has numerous and far-flung hidden corners. The plot is nicely twisted and entertainingly convoluted, weaving its way around and among the characters who are well-delineated. Harvey fleshes them out in a few sentences - not many wasted words. All in all, a good read with sufficient and legitimate tension to hold your attention.

Having read The Third Rail, The Fifth Floor and now The Chicago Way (reverse order), this was the third novel I have read by Michael Harvey and enjoyed this debut the most. The self-depreciating humor he adds to the dialogue reminds me a bit of the style that David Rosenfelt used in the Andy Carpenter series.

While Harvey is not my favorite author, The Chicago Way is a quick and engaging thriller debut that kept me flipping pages from beginning to end.

Cubs fan, Michael Kelly is a former divorced cop and now tough private investigator in Chicago. The story begins when retired police officer and his former partner from the decade before, John Gibbons gets him involved in a cold case involving the near stabbing death and rape of the beautiful victim, Elaine Remington.

In short order Gibbons turns up murdered as do so many others who were part of the cold case. Organized crime and dirty politicians and city employees help set the scenes and keep the story interesting.

Through the stories of many victims of sexual assault and support groups aimed at helping those who have been raped, Kelly learns more than he bargained for and meets some attractive women along the way.

Kelly's childhood best friend, DNA analyst Nicole Andrews is involved with a Rape Victim's support group headed up by her friend Judge Rachel Swenson. Also involved in the group is Diane Lindsay, 6 p.m. Chicago Action Television News announcer.

The flow of the plot involves solving the puzzle of how death row murderer and rapist, John William Grime and possible accomplice Daniel Pollard are connected to Elaine's rape and the murders of others. Through Mike Kelly, the author unravels the case and ties up loose ends while he prepares the way for his next novel.

I enjoyed this book, I think you will too.