The Evil That Men Do: A Jackson Donne Novel [Paperback]

Dave White (Author)

Book Description

Series: A Jackson Donne Novel | Publication Date: June 17, 2008

Even generations later, you can't escape. . .the evil that men do.

Stripped of his private investigator’s license and slumming it as a night security guard at a Jersey storage facility, Jackson Donne thinks he’s finally hit rock bottom. Then the bottom really falls out: The sister he hasn’t seen in years shows up, needing help.

Turns out Donne’s Alzheimer’s-stricken mother has begun hinting at long-buried family secrets from her hospital bed, suggesting a sinister–even murderous–past. Meanwhile, Donne’s relatives are suddenly being greeted by blackmail, car bombs, and bullets to the back of the skull.

All Donne wants is to disappear–preferably into a nice frosty pint glass–but he soon realizes that his only chance at saving his family, and himself, is by solving a mystery more than sixty years old. Now he needs to figure out how a hit man, crooked cops, corrupt politics, a kidnapping, and the city of Bayonne all fit together. He’ll discover that old family secrets still have the power to kill in this razor-sharp PI story that makes classic noir new again.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Estranged from his family, Jackson Donne is surprised and angered when his sister demands that he help her as their mother slips toward death from the effects of Alzheimer’s. Donne’s mother is now living in the past and speaking cryptically of tragic events that took place 70 years ago. Now those events threaten the family that Donne has just rejoined. His brother-in-law’s Manhattan restaurant is bombed. His elderly aunt and uncle are murdered, execution-style. His brother-in-law is kidnapped, and his sister has no access to the money demanded as ransom. It falls to Donne to save his family. This second Jackson Donne novel is uneven. Donne’s nemesis is a fascinating character, but how he came to be so preternaturally clever isn’t explained. Scenes of Donne’s mother’s decline, however, are knowing and movingly written, and the gritty New Jersey locale seems an ideal setting for portraying the evil that men do. Not yet 30, author White has plenty of time to polish his skills. Keep an eye on him. --Thomas Gaughan

Review

“A fresh, vital voice energizing the private-eye novel. Do yourself a favor and read Dave White now.”
—Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of What the Dead Know

“The Evil That Men Do cements Dave White’s place as one of the rising stars of crime fiction. A gripping read from an author who has infused the PI novel with fresh blood for a new millennium.”
–Jason Pinter, bestselling author of The Guilty and The Mark

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 287 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; First Edition edition (June 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307382796
• ISBN-13: 978-0307382795
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,143,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

DAVE WHITE, born in 1979, is among the youngest winners of the Derringer Award. He has contributed to many anthologies and collections, including The Adventure of the Missing Detective and Damn Near Dead. Both his novels have been nominated for Shamus Awards. Dave lives in New Jersey, where he teaches middle-school English.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a 5-star read, June 27, 2008

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Evil That Men Do: A Jackson Donne Novel (Paperback)

Jackson Donne is not a happy man. He has suffered through losing his job at the police department, drug abuse and rehab. His fiancée was killed. He has lost his PI License and is working as a night security guard. Jackson is trying to rebuild his life and attend Rutgers University.

Now his sister Susan is begging him to visit his mother in the nursing home. She wants Jackson to find out more about their grandfather. Jackson and Susan's mother is suffering from Alzheimer's and keeps reliving times when she was little. She talks about her father killing a man. Jackson hasn't seen his sister in years and only wants to try to rebuild his own life and isn't interested in the past. Finally after a visit from his brother-in-law Franklin Carter, Jackson agrees to at least look into the matter.

Soon Jackson is forced to solve a mystery that occurred before he was even born in order to save what is left of his family. Susan and her husband, Franklin Carter, are both in grave danger and only answers from the past can help save them. Car bombs, blackmail and more all enter the picture.

Dave White's novels are exciting and keep you on edge all the way. I enjoyed the first Jackson Donne novel When One Man Dies, and this one tops the first.

Armchair Interviews says: Always great to find a story that is so well done.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Where disbelief goes to die, October 9, 2008

By 

W. B Crews (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Evil That Men Do: A Jackson Donne Novel (Paperback)

This book doesn't require a suspension of disbelief, it requires that your disbelief be lobotomized.

The author tries to link a series of events that occurred in 1938 to a present day kidnapping, multiple murder, and bombing. An interesting notion that might have been plausible in more capable hands but here it just doesn't work.

Without giving away a key plot device, I'd note that the typical background check, even for a Top Secret security clearance, wouldn't delve into your genealogy and it is unlikely that your employer will tell you about your own past of which you are ignorant when 1) you're adopted, 2) from another country, and 3) when your last name is utterly mundane.

The hero of this story is angst ridden over the loss of his wife. We don't quite know why or how she died, I guess this is a teaser to get us to read the previous novels in this series, or why this matters.

The dialog is clunky and contrived. The characters are cardboard cutouts except when they act out of character -- in this book you will meet the only ex-drug dealer hit man in New Jersey who registers his firearm under his real name and address.

The unbelievable storyline and uninteresting characters are compounded by the author's unfamiliarity with his material. For instance, the recoil from a 9mm handgun will not knock down a 13 year old kid, when an airbag deploys upon impact it immediately deflates, ammonium nitrate doesn't explode - it is an ingredient in making a type of explosive, and on and on.

On the whole, Mr. White could have used a much stronger editor. If you feel compelled to read the book, check it out from your library.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Over-the-top plot, dumb decisions, August 8, 2008

By 

L. J. Roberts (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Evil That Men Do: A Jackson Donne Novel (Paperback)

First Sentence: Joe Tenant tied the barge to the dock.

Ex-cop Jackson Donne has now been stripped of his PI license and has estranged himself from his family, including his mother with Alzheimer's.

His sister, Susan, shows up asking him to visit their mother as she has been rambling about incidents that happened to their family in 1938. Events escalate when her husband is kidnapped for ransom.

I had a hard time getting through this. At the beginning, it is very heavy on product placement--Molson beer, Coach bag, Ryder truck, Verison--which I found distracting.

As it went on, I realized there was no real character development or growth to the characters, so I had no real empathy for any of them. I tried to remind myself that the protagonist was fairly young, but he made an incredibly dumb decision at one point that nearly stopped me.

The plot is over the top. At one point, the protagonist exclaimed he found the villain's motive insane. So did I and, again, it made me want to stop reading.

The best thing about the book, for me, was the twist at the end--and that I was at the end.