City of Strangers: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Otto Penzler Books) [Hardcover]

John Shannon (Author)

Book Description

Series: Otto Penzler Books | Publication Date: April 2003

In the sixth novel of this best-selling private-eye series, Jack Liffey probes the complex ethnic mix—Muslim, Jewish, Baha’i, Christian, and secular—of the Persian communities in Los Angeles. A gripping tale that confronts youthful idealism with perfervid fundamentalism, it lands bright, earnest Fariborz Bayat, who has gone missing from an elite L.A. high school with three other Persian-American boys, in a cell of Arab terrorists. Hired to find the boys, Liffey finds himself in a nightmare, unless he and Fariborz can thwart the cell’s plot to set off a dirty bomb full of radioactive waste high over L.A.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shannon's superb sixth book (after 2002's Streets of Fire) to feature L.A. PI Jack Liffey explores the complicated ethnic mix of Los Angeles's Iranian community. Hired by psychiatrist Dicky Auslander to find his missing teenage daughter, Rebecca, who disappeared with four Iranian boys from an exclusive private school, Liffey learns a lot about this virtually invisible minority while discovering dangerous links to a fanatic Muslim sheik and a brutal Mexican drug family. Liffey is also forced to take a hard look at himself-part of the condition of his employment being regular sessions with Rebecca's father. Just dumped by his longtime ladyfriend, who became a born-again Christian, and not allowed to see his own teenage daughter, Maeve, because of unpaid child support, Liffey finds himself even more lost and depressed than ever, breaking into tears at inappropriate moments. He's somewhat consoled by two promising new women he meets during the course of the investigation, and Maeve's mother eventually relents and lets Maeve both help and hinder Jack in the search for the missing teens. Liffey also has to shoulder a lot of physical pain in the course of his search-though Shannon is shrewd enough to lighten the reader's load with a sharply observed gallery of pompous adults and touching children. As his fans well know, reading a Jack Liffey novel is no day at the beach. But then again, neither is life in Southern California.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* With his sixth Jack Liffey book, Shannon's series is still on an upward trajectory. When college friend Dicky Auslander's daughter goes missing, Auslander, now a self-important psychologist, retains Liffey on the condition that he undergo therapy during case updates--mutual friends have tipped the shrink that the detective's life is not going so well. Liffey sort of agrees and finds the daughter's absence may be tied to that of four prep-school Persian Americans who have taken the first steps toward militancy in the name of Islam. As if that's not enough, a link to money stolen from Mexican drug lords leads Liffey into dangerous territory south of the border. The middle-aged gumshoe also struggles to solve problems presented by his own headstrong daughter--who has made Liffey & Liffey business cards--and the mysteries of his own heart after his latest breakup. Between crime-solving and parenting dilemmas, Shannon offers sage ruminations on belief, belonging, and responsibility. Liffey is a terrific character--smart, funny, sad, and a keen observer of social strata and the world at large. His journey after the truth is realistically messy, and we're with him every step of the way. If only all mystery novels were this good. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf; First Carroll & Graf Edition edition (April 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786711639
• ISBN-13: 978-0786711635
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,097,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life as usual in Apocalypse Central, April 17, 2003

By 

Charlotte Vale-Allen (CT USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: City of Strangers: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Otto Penzler Books) (Hardcover)

What is notable about John Shannon's Jack Liffey series is the author's depth of feeling and respect for young people. What is also of signal importance is the author's talent for creating thoroughly believable characters--even the villains. Take, for example, the fat man so immense that he requires two chairs to accommodate his width. In anyone else's hands, this creature would be a blob of amorphous evil--intent purely on doing his motiveless bad deeds. But with Shannon at the helm, we're presented with a history that makes the character so real that his behavior is genuinely shocking because we don't want to think that someone thoughtful and articulate can, given his intimate first-hand acquaintanceship with pain, proceed to inflict that same pain (literally) on someone else. Yet he does. And it feels very real; the reader shares Liffey's injuries--both physical and psychic. The same skill is at work in defining the young people in City of Strangers, especially the exquisitely drawn Fariborz who is a living, breathing portrait of internal conflict--a good soul on a crusade to awaken people to the wrongness all around them.

As always, when Liffey ultimately makes contact with the young people he's been hired to find, there are deeply thoughtful exchanges. Never condescending, never patronizing, always self-deprecating, yet always sensitive to their struggles--whether real or imagined--Liffey enters into their lives offering his battered heart and body as support for their sorrows. No one I've read has such a profound grasp on the issues that are central to the lives of youngsters approaching the treacherous border of adulthood. Liffey is a good man whose empathy is a poultice for the injured young, drawing out their pain and taking it into himself--like the archetypal sin eater.

Then, gleefully, there are the apocalyptic views that are sprinkled throughout every Liffey adventure. This time out, sadly, there are no little rat-like dogs to be hated. But there is a billboard advertising Drive-Through Hi-Colonics. Relief Without Waiting. (Hilarious!) And there are a couple of bemasked individuals on the street, holding up a banner that says, "Open Up Area 51, Display the Alien Remains."

Finally, happily, Jack has connected with the redoubtable Miss Rebecca Plumkill. And there are bits of a shredded foam pillow littering the bedroom. Now how, we have to wonder with amusement, did that happen? And aren't we glad that some warm light has managed to filter through the gloom of Jack's sorrows!
My highest recommendation.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ya Gotta Love Jack Liffey!, April 25, 2003

By 

Rapid Reader (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Strangers: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Otto Penzler Books) (Hardcover)

Here's another great book from John Shannon! It's full of contempory issues such as dirty bombs and Arab Islamic terrorists. As well as covering Los Angeles scenes, which Shannon does better than anyone else I've read, he takes us across the border for a danger-filled visit to Mexico, complete with a vicious drug lord. Jack Liffey gets pretty beaten up this time, but he encounters a couple of interesting new women to ease the pain. He survives it all with courage and integrity intact and with a little help from his daughter Maeve, who seems to be more involved in keeping him alive as the books go on. It was such an engaging story that I could hardly put it down! I'm eager for the next book so I can find out which little corners of L.A., ethnic groups, and social issues, the multi-dimensional Jack Liffey will deal with as he and "Sancho Panza" Maeve drift around my city.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More attention should be paid, April 15, 2003

By 

Michael Harris (Long Beach, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Strangers: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Otto Penzler Books) (Hardcover)

For several years now, John Shannon's series of Jack Liffey mysteries has provided us not only great reads but a social history of Los Angeles, one neighborhood at a time. "City of Strangers" explores Southern California's Iranian community against a backdrop of drug dealing and terrorist plots. At the heart of it is a nightmare journey through the slums of Tijuana and across the border that viscerally recalls scenes in Richard Ford's "The Ultimate Good Luck." This comparison isn't forced; Shannon is a thoroughly literary writer, and Liffey, his detective, isn't a crime-solving automaton but a human being, weary but dogged, flawed but admirable, a religious unbeliever who can't stop grappling with the fundamental questions.
"City of Strangers" has a thriller ending, in which Islamic extremists plan to detonate a "dirty bomb" over that capital of hedonism and excess, West L.A. It's important to note, though, that Shannon's attitude toward the Iranian teen-agers caught up in the plot is a sympathetic one; he's trying to use the scariness of the genre to open our eyes, not harden our hearts.
In time, surely, the Liffey novels will get their due and become national best-sellers. For readers new to them, however, "City of Strangers" is a good place to start.