The Dark Streets: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Jack Liffey Mysteries) [Paperback]

John Shannon (Author)

Book Description

Series: Jack Liffey Mysteries | Publication Date: April 28, 2008

The detective the Chicago Tribune declared "the most interesting since Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins" himself goes missing.

The Dark Streets takes private investigator Jack Liffey to LA's glitzy, exotic Koreatown, where a young film student, Soon-Lin Kim, has apparently gone missing. Early in his search for her, Jack learns that Soon-Lin has been tangling with a giant Korean conglomerate.

Again, as in all the Liffey mysteries, the superbly-crafted action that makes John Shannon one of the most exciting detective-fiction writers on the California scene envelops Jack, and ultimately he finds himself under torturously intense interrogation at the secret compound of a private security agency—and for a climax as explosive as the violent lightning storm in the desert sky.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the ninth Jack Liffey mystery (after 2005's Dangerous Games), Shannon once again skillfully dissects the sociocultural landscape of Los Angeles. When a young female film student and activist, Soon-Lin Kim, goes missing in Koreatown, Liffey discovers that Kim had been shooting a documentary about a group of former "comfort women," Korean-born women living in L.A. who had been forced into military brothels by the Japanese during the 1930s and '40s. Kim was at work exposing the shady wartime past of the conglomerate Daeshin, now responsible for evicting the elderly women from their downtown rooming house. Meanwhile, Liffey's 17-year-old daughter, Maeve, has fallen for a Latino gang member; his relationship with police detective Gloria Ramirez is suffering growing pains; and, frankly, he's just tired. When Liffey ends up abducted and imprisoned in a desert compound, Gloria has to step up to investigate his disappearance before a battle between the Feds and a militant Asian-American group erupts. This underrated series remains consistently provocative. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Jack Liffey is a walking conscience, a bruised crusader who remains an unerring advocate of doing things the hard way and on behalf of the little guy. His ninth adventure begins with a Korean American businessman's search for his missing daughter, a budding filmmaker who's documenting the plight of the "comfort women" forced into sexual slavery in World War II. Her trail leads Liffey to both a paranoid group of activists and some scary government contractors--and ultimately to a Waco-like standoff in the desert. There's a lot packed into this ambitious book, including examinations of both antiterrorist hysteria and the dangers posed by high-minded ideals. And while the intellectual journey is every bit as keen as we've come to expect, the storytelling doesn't gel quite as well as his previous bests, The Orange Curtain (2001) and City of Strangers (2003). A subplot involving Liffey's 17-year-old daughter, Maeve, stands too far apart from the story, and, finally, despite the quality of the conversation, it's a bit too talky. But fans of thinking-man's detective fiction will find much to ponder. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Pegasus (April 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933648910
• ISBN-13: 978-1933648910
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,758,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lively Liffey, February 25, 2007

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

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This review is from: The Dark Streets: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Jack Liffey Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I happily welcome my favorite LA mystery character's return in this book that deals with very contemporary issues and some very old ones. This time he meets the LA Korean community as well as tangling with our Homeland Security guardians. The social issues of the Korean "comfort women" are mixed with the gang culture of East LA. This all adds to the highly engaging soap opera of the lives of the other wonderfully drawn continuing characters. I do worry about Maeve though!! If you're a John Shannon fan as I am, don't miss this one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More Jack Liffey and Less Maeve, December 25, 2007

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Cardiff Camel "cardiffcamel" (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Dark Streets: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Jack Liffey Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I read a positive review of Mr. Shannon's Jack Liffey Series in the New York or LA Times some time last year. I was sorry I had not come across the series before as I am very fond of mysteries that provide a strong sense of place e.g. Spencer and Boston. I began with the Liffey mystery Concrete River and then because I liked that one quite a lot bought the others - mostly going book by book through the series. I have been increasingly put off but the family stuff however. It just doesn't work for me. I am totally in favor of sub-plots (and like at least one or two to be included) but Mr. Liffey's ex-wife and his reckless obnoxious daughter just don't work for me. I inwardly groan every time they show up on the page. The Dark Streets is interesting and overall quite a good read, but the teen daughter's involvement with the Latino Gang-banger was disgusting and tedious. And now she is pregnant! (How dumb can this girl be!) I anticipate the (dumb obnoxious) daughter and her Gang-banger paramour to have an ever increasing presence in the Liffey series and perhaps their child will be included in the plot also. So unfortunately the Dark Streets and pregnant Maeve have ended my romance with this series.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Less Than I Expected, February 4, 2009

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TMStyles (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Dark Streets: A Jack Liffey Mystery (Jack Liffey Mysteries) (Paperback)

"The Dark Streets" is John Shannon's ninth novel but only the first that I have read featuring Jack Liffey, a street-wise sleuth who specializes in finding missing persons. The plot begins simply enough but soon gets convoluted as Jack's search for a missing Korean girl, Soon-Lin Kim, suddenly leads to his "disappearance" due to an over-zealous Homeland Security group (ISOC) and ultimately leads to a Waco/Ruby Ridge-like confrontation in the desert near El Centro.

I surmise that long time readers of this series know the characters in some depth and Shannon does seem to expend considerable effort in character development; however, I never became seriously attached to any of the characters and felt his 17 year old daughter, Maeve, in a ludicrous subplot, was a witless undisciplined dunce.

There is some nimble plotting involving several Los Angeles based cultures that come into conflict including Mexican gangs, Korean nationals, white suburbanites, and idealistic young revolutionaries. Some of this cultural conflict is juxtaposed within chapters that seem to compare the experiences of Koreans in wartime drama with Mexicans in current street war drama. The whole subplot dealing with the atrocity surrounding the Korean "comfort women" exploited by the Japanese army in WWII is well woven into the fabric of the plot. However, the Mexican gang life subplot involving Maeve hit this reader as hard-to-believe gullibility on the part of a "with-it" 17 year old.

This reader found the pacing to be somewhat slow and the plotting, in general, certainly without enough action or excitement to be classed as either action-packed or as a thriller of any kind. The climax and denouement of the book was also disappointing as the whole buildup of the plot, somewhat tedious at times, was wrapped up in just a few pages with multiple plot lines either summarily tied up, ignored, or left for the next installment. For example, the entire kidnapping and torturing of Jack segment of the book was ignored in the aftermath of the climax.

My initial experience with John Shannon and his Jack Liffey character was less than I had anticipated. Those who enjoy the Doc Ford, Jack Reacher, or Dave Robicheaux characters and the mileux in which they operate will likely not find Jack Liffey as interesting...but I am sure he is not meant to be. I am just suggesting that Jack will appeal to a different reader than will the others mentioned.