Customer Reviews

Hard Knocks

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After about three chapters of Hard Knocks, I was having serious doubts about whether I was going to like this book. The lingo, the characters, the half truths and the double crosses were already making my head spin. You get Knocko, who's The Man, and then there's The Speaker who's also The Man. You've got Slip and Jiggs and Bucky, and Tommy Miami and a host of other guys who are mob bosses, ward chiefs, chairmen, councilors, and feds. Finally, we have our hero, Jack Reilly - disgraced former cop turned PI. He's now a master at finding the dirt on anybody who's anybody, and when his brother recommends his services to a certain bank robber who promptly gets whacked, well off we go on a journey of crooked cops, crooked politicians, organized crime, and one guy with a crooked past who's just trying to do the right thing. Make no mistake, this is a story where you really have to pay attention.

I am not familiar with Boston, their politics, or their criminals, however once I got everybody straightened out, this book really took off for me. The author has a wonderful talent for dialogue and it wasn't long before I had fallen into the groove of the lingo and could really hear these guys speaking to me. The story is full of twists and turns, hard language and brutal choices. I had no idea through most of the book how Jack was going to get himself out of the mess he landed in, and even when I thought I had it figured out, the author wasn't quite done yet. There were more surprises to come.

This is a great read for fans of crime fiction, and I hope we see more of Jack Reilly. He's an ideal hero for a city full of crooked, power hungry cops and politicians. He's far from perfect, but seems to be developing a fondness for justice and also for a certain intrepid reporter. We learn a lot about Jack and what he stands for in this book, and I look forward to seeing what the author might have in store for this character in the future.

Fans of Dennis Lehane will find much to appreciate here. If you are like me and a newbie to the world of organized crime and Boston politics, don't despair. If you hang with this tale of corruption and justice, you will be treated to a story that is tightly plotted, is rich in suspense, and has dialogue that really pops. The characters are unforgettable and will no doubt provide readers with the most fun they've had since The Soprano's left the air. Don't miss it, or who knows, you might get a visit from Knocko. Believe me, you don't want that.

I was drawn to the South End of Boston setting and the Irish ex-cop who is the protagonist in "Hard Knocks."

Jack Reilly's brother, Marty, is in jail and Jack is trying to live down the shame of his brother's imprisonment and make a living as a P.I.

As the story opens, a friend of Marty's calls Jack and asks him to meet at an Irish bar and cop hangout called Foley's. He gives Jack a small retainer and asks for his help with some information he has on the mob but is gunned down soon after leaving Foley's.

One of Jack's former academy classmates, Plain View Evans, leads the investigation and doesn't mind letting it show that he believes that Jack is mixed up in a crime, possilby involving the mob.

Jack Reilly had been a driver for the mayor and is retired from the P.D. on a stress related disability. As he begins investigating, the reader can't help but be reminded of another Boston P.I., Robert Parker's wonderful character, Spencer. The author also seems influenced by Mickey Spillane and, in Reilly, we see a new, and improved, Mike Hammer.

While Reilly is searching for the information that the mob wants-or doesn't want anyone else to have, he's helped by an attractive reporter, Katy Bemis.

The humorous but complicated plot eventually comes together nicely and the reader is drawn to the action.

I was impressed with the realistic dialogue and setting of the Boston area filled with politicians on the take and corrupt lawmen.

The author is a columnist for the "Boston Herald" and has given his readers an interesting vision of the hard streets of Boston and a modern P.I. who knows how to survive within those mean streets.

3 1/2 stars moving up to 4.

Fans of Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammet will be right at home with Howie Carr's 'Hard Knocks.' Set in Boston with forays to Springfield, Mass.,this story of political dirty tricks and corruption is written in a cynical style that is as crisp and tart as a good apple. I got so involved in the story that I read the book in a day! The author is a long-time journalist and radio icon in Boston and he seems to know very well what he writes about. Carr's protagonist, Jack Reilly, is Boston born and bred. He is a former policeman (third generation)whose intelligence brings him to the attention of one of Boston's Irish-American mayors, who employs him as a driver and 'problem solver.' We quickly learn his 'back story:' Reilly's adeptness at political 'dirty tricks' led him to be set up for a sting operation. Years ago, he was forced out of the police force and into the 'private sector.' His current activities read like those of a private investigator but his specialty is still fishing up unsavory bits from people's pasts to use in 'taking out' his clients' political opponents. I have had a fair amount of experience in a state legislature and in municipal government and most of the story rings true, perhaps with some exaggeration. The personal brand of political manuevering Carr describes merits the title of 'Hard Knocks' and even 'sharp elbows.'

The story in this book tautly describes the worldview of a middle-aged contemporary Irish-Italian American in a demographically changing Boston. As with Archie Bunker, political correctness is not on the menu unless it is scorned or satirized. The seamy side of modern culture ('sex, drugs and rock-n-roll')provides a subtext for angst over fading traditions. There are murders involved in the story--our hero is concerned with settling the score for one of them and he is actively engaged it not becoming a victim of the next one. Past murders tie into the story, mainly to give a sense of the continuity of the symbosis between crime and ward-level politics in the city over its modern history. There is a pretty and much-younger woman reporter to be rescued and her 'elbows' are just as sharp as anyone's in her desire to be first with a story and to get her own column in a larger paper. All of these elements move along unsentimentally and at a fine pace. While we believe the hero may come out right in the end (in most books they do), the outcome is seriously in doubt at every turn. Does he, in fact survive this time? Either way, this is a cracking good story and, while some scenes may be familiar, the writing is fresh and there is no sense of a cliche anywhere in the authorship.

Another Irish (OK, half-Irish, half-Italian) "rogue ex-cop" trolling the mean streets of Boston, complete with the obligatory social divide between the working man and the Brahmin, meat-and-potatoes versus the trust funders. Another tale of political corruption, with the corruption so endemic that it permeates every layer of society. All of this might result in a hackneyed private eye novel that has been done and done again and yet again.

Yet HARD KNOCKS, Howie Carr's novel featuring Jack Reilly, is laugh out loud funny, fresh, and gritty. No pretension here, Carr knows Boston. His non-fiction has plumbed the inner workings of Whitey Bulger, the enigmatic crime boss who was the model for Martin Scorcese's "The Departed", and he has woven fact into fiction. HARD KNOCKS comes complete with a crooked FBI agent, Finnerty, a local boy made bad and given the unfortunate nickname Agent Orange, the less than dynamic duo of Knocko Nugent and Tony Miami, the crime lords of a small empire, and a gun-toting 67-year old city councilman who attends five wakes every evening.

Bucky Bennett hires Jack Reilly with a $20.00 bill. Bennett was referred to Jack through Jack's brother, Marty, currently incarcerated for driving a truckload of cigarettes that weren't his. When Bennett is executed outside of Foley's, a prototypical Boston neighborhood bar, Reilly begins to unravel crimes that go back three decades. Jack soon becomes a target for just about every other character in the book...Plain View Evans, a Boston detective, has him in his sights, Knocko delivers a not insignificant knife wound to his chin, and two thugs batter Reilly into unconscious in Somerville, his second favorite city...after everywhere else. Oh, and let's not forget Katy Bemis, reporter for the decidedly downscale Boston Herald, object of Reilly's affection.

While following the circuitous trail left by Bennett, Reilly also does what he does best. Former fixer/bagman for the mayor, now out of a disability pension (mental) from the Boston Police Department, Reilly uncovers unsavory details and events in the lives of rival politicians. If you want a job and someone else has it, Jack will find the dirt and the job will be yours.

Ultimately, though, Reilly has a sense of honor. A code. Somewhere in Jack Reilly there is a shred of morality and a large dose of decency.

Well-plotted, with crisp dialog and a sense of place, HARD KNOCKS is the kind of book Robert Parker wrote in the early days of the Spenser series. The comparisons to Dennis Lehane are not far afield, though Reilly is a more careworn protagonist. This is the kind of book that inveterate mystery readers will enjoy; it's what keeps us coming back for more.

There's a lot to like about this book.

First and foremost, It's an interesting story: a third generation cop, now retired and working as a private investigator, gets a "job" from a former con that ultimately leads him thru a maze of corruption on the political and police scene in Boston. Ummm.. frankly it sounds like a plot to dozens of similar stories. I suppose what makes this story good is Carr's ability to write the details in such a manner that everything flows. He's a good writer and foolwing the trail and envisioning the events isn't hard.

And his characters have life. One can easily envision our heroes and villans on the streets of Boston. Speaking of heroes, our main star is one Jack Reilly, a one-time Boston cop and body guard for the previous mayor, who has his good and his bad points: a shaudy background, of course, a former wife and a brother who's mob connect and in prison. He gets involved with an attractive female reporter and uses his connections with a city councilman who just stepped out of Cheers to bring down corruption that includes an FBI agent bucking to be the new police commissioner. Yes boys and girls, somehow this sounds familiar.

On the other hand, the characters were realistic, the events flowed and everything came together. So what went wrong? Part of it is the whole Boston scene. I suppose if you've been to Boston and know a bit (quite a bit actually) of the Boston area, local politics and police history, the story goes down much easier. I get that Carr is from Boston, but he knocks off details and locations like he's telling the story to someone having lunch with him at the Copley or Haymarket (Boston locales, by the way).

In summary... it's worth the read. I liked the characters, the writing was interesting, the story line made sense. If he could have just toned down the tour of the city I would have like it another star better.

Howie Carr is in top form as his protagonist Jack Reilly, a dodgy ex-Boston cop, rummages through the dirty linen of crime bosses and their equally dirty cohorts among the political elite in HARD KNOCKS, his expose encompassing 30 years of political corruption in Boston thinly disguised as a novel. The book is written in a terse and concise style propelling the plot along at an accelerated sprint and guaranteeing that lovers of "40's style noir" and subtly sinister scenarios won't be disappointed in nor bored by this engrossing read.

Carr's Reilly character is vaguely reminiscent of Mickey Spillane's hard boiled private eye Mike Hammer, complete with wise cracks and pithy observations. With lines like "The Speaker was quoted in both papers as saying he was "deeply gratified" by the "overwhelming" vote. The taxpayers could not be reached for comment", or his scrutiny of the Boston rapid transit system "In the front of the car, a grimy Gabby Hayes look alike had removed his boots and was cutting his toenails, which were ricocheting around the car at the speed of sound" and finally Reilly's perception of the state of health care in the country with "Have you been to a hospital emergency room lately? If you speak English and appear to be an American citizen, you are indeed a stranger in a strange land."

Like all good suspense novels that provide not only a goodly amount of drama but also afford the reader with behind the scenes information, Carr strikes a nice balance between the a tale of political corruption and the life of his protagonist, whose personal baggage and occasional bouts of self-awareness are a pleasure for the reader to observe.

Personally I loved HARD KNOCKS. It was filled with plenty of action and enough "s" turns to keep the reading wanting more. In the time-honored tradition of the old Bogart movies, this is a book that would easily translate to the big screen. I see Bruce Willis as Jack (he's the right age and has just the right mixture of humility and bravado to pull this off). I am not ashamed to say that Jack Reilly is an anti-hero who could easily become the man of my dreams and I am anxiously awaiting Howie Carr's next chapter in Jack's life.

How about that Jack Reilly? A former "dirty" cop, he has few morals, less scruples, and no problems working both sides of the law. His main occupation is digging up the dirt needed to destroy a political career. About the only good thing you can say about him is, he wouldn't sell out his own brother. Because he had that opportunity, and managed to pass. By all rights, he should be the bad guy here. But this is Boston, where there are bad guys, and there's the Mafia, and then there are the *really* bad guys. Still, there's something about Jack, an irrepressible twinkle in his cynical eye, that makes it awfully hard not to like the guy.

"Hard Knocks" starts pretty dark, and seems to be grimly heading into the sort nightmare territory that Dennis Lehane rules. Then the tiniest, driest sense of humour gently broadens out and rescues it from the darkest depths of noir. It's all still pretty nasty, but you can strap in and enjoy this high-speed ride with a slight smile instead of cringing.

You'll still cringe a bit though, because in Carr's Beantown, everyone is finely drawn and to some degree flawed. The locations are authentic, and I was pleasantly reminded of places I haven't visited since I lived there. This is just an outstanding thriller, so authentically drawn that it could well be non-fiction. I just hope that Reilly will be back soon for an encore!

I'm a first time reader of Howie Carr and I was quite impressed with his writing. Quick paced, action packed, funny and most of all the storyline is great. The book moved quickly along and did not let up until the last word which is very hard for some authors to achieve but Mr. Carr seemed to do this effortlessly. Sure there are other books about rogue ex-cops in Boston, but this book is better than most. I plan on buying more of Mr. Carr's books now and whenever he writes some more. And I highly recommend this book to anyone and I don't think you will be disappointed.

The characters in "Hard Knocks" inhabit the kind of dirty, gritty underworld you've seen a million times on television, where everyone is for sale and everyone is crooked. Howie Carr crams it all in here -- nicknames like "The Man" and "Jiggs" and "Plain View," stolen documents, wiretaps, double crosses, bloodshed, and a wide assortment of disgraced cops, double-dealing politicians, violent hoodlums, murderers, homophobes, racists, and rapists. And amazingly, a few of those attributes can be applied to the few-and-far-between "good guys."

I love crime fiction and noir throwbacks, but "Hard Knocks" is pretty darn depressing. It's a pessimistic, dreary tale in which absolutely everyone is flawed and virtually beyond redemption. It's the kind of story where the anti-hero lets a pedophile go free because it's in his best interests. There is just something dark and sexist and racist at work here that ultimately turned me off and made all of the characters -- good, bad, and somewhere in between -- unlikeable.

That said, Carr makes good use of dialogue, and while I am not a fan of the world he has created, it is a completely realized environment with it's own laws and moral code. The plot is complex, yet not all that necessary to fully understand. You get a sense almost immediately whose in charge, whose in danger, and who might just come out on top in the end. It's more about atmosphere than anything else. I cannot say for certain who might enjoy this book, apart from Bostonians who might enjoy all of the highly detailed references to the city's geography, history, and politics. Then again, Bostonians might find themselves incredibly offended.

Hard Knocks was my first exposure to Howie Carr, but it will not be my last. It was an action-packed 352-page; entertaining quick read that held my interest from beginning to end.

Jack Reilly is a political savvy former Boston policeman drawing disability and working as a flawed "PI." In this case "PI" means one who buys and sells dirt that alters the lives and careers of others.

Unfortunately Jack kept his promised his now deceased mother that he would look out for his jailbird brother, Martin T. Reilly. Martin's mouth and actions has put Jack in harm's way with the mob.

On the recommendation from Martin, ex-con Bucky Bennett seeks the services of Jack regarding incriminating documents he stole from a bank's safety deposit box. Those documents not only caused Bucky's untimely demise, but also put Jack in the cross hairs of the underworld.

Struggling to survive the dangers of corrupt elements of the mob, police and politicians, Jack uses his considerable experience to piece together a strategy to make a living and stay one step ahead of those who want him dead.

I enjoyed this crime-thriller and look forward to reading Carr's Best Seller, Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano, Whitey Bulger's Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld.

Enjoy!