The Man Who Never Returned: A Novel [Hardcover]

Peter Quinn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 5, 2010

Judge Joe Crater¹s disappearance in 1930 spawned countless conspiracy theories and captured the imagination of a nation caught in the grip of The Depression.

Fifteen years later, Fintan Dunne the detective encountered in Quinn¹s novel Hour of the Cat, recently retired and bored, answers a summons to New York where he is asked to solve the old case for a newspaper magnate only interested in making a profit from the story.

Peter Quinn once again has written a compelling blend of history and fiction that is simply unputdownable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Quinn delivers a satisfying solution to the real-life mystery of Joseph Crater, a New York City judge who disappeared in 1930, in this stellar hard-boiled historical, a sequel to The Hour of the Cat (2005). In 1955, a New York newspaper magnate offers PI Fintan Dunne carte blanche to investigate the case in the hope that Dunne will provide him with a sensational exclusive. Crater vanished just as an official inquiry into judicial corruption, ordered by then governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was getting underway. Perhaps Crater fled to avoid prosecution--or someone bumped him off because he knew too much. Restless in retirement, Dunne accepts the offer, despite his skepticism that such a cold trail can be meaningfully pursued. Quinn not only makes the existence of clues at such a late date plausible but also concocts an explanation that's both logical and surprising. The depth and complexity of the lead character is a big plus.
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From Booklist

In August 1930, New York State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Crater left a Manhattan restaurant and was never seen again. Less than a year after the crash of the stock market, Crater became the embodiment of the fears, and perhaps the frail hopes, of Americans facing the Great Depression and soon to face WWII and the cold war. Was Crater rubbed out by the Mob, or did he simply disappear to find happiness as an ordinary Joe? Twenty-five years later, a Rupert Murdoch–like newspaper publisher hires private investigator Fintan Dunne to do what the NYPD couldn’t do: solve the mystery of Crater’s disappearance. Freely mixing history, mystery, and novelistic license, Quinn offers a noirish tale of Tammany Hall politics, sex, crime, Broadway moguls, and cops, populated by more than a dozen interesting characters. Dunne’s detection seems to come a bit too easily, but Quinn’s rich, insightful, evocative descriptions of New York, both in Crater’s time and in 1955, will certainly please fans of historical crime novels. --Thomas Gaughan

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (August 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590203887
• ISBN-13: 978-1590203880
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #855,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Remembrances of Things Past, September 18, 2010

By 

John D. "Reviewer" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Never Returned: A Novel (Hardcover)

'The Man Who Never Returned,' by Peter Quinn doesn't require you to be of a certain age and a native New Yorker. It does help, however.

Mr. Quinn is of a certain age, is a native New Yorker, grew up in a political atmosphere, worked in one as an adult, and has been forever fascinated by the disappearance of Judge Joseph Force Crater since sometime between birth and learning the multiplication tables.

So, if you're old enough to remember the Savoy Plaza, the Third Avenue El, and of course Penn Station before it was torn down and replaced by what still makes some people cry, then there is good likelihood that the fictionalized account of solving New York's longest running missing persons case is for you.

It is 1955 and Fintan Dunne, Peter Quinn's free-lance detective has been retained by a media mogul to solve the Crater case, just in time for the 25th anniversary of the Judge's permanent disappearance that will neatly coincide with a magazine launch by media mogul's publishing empire. The Judge has been missing since August 6,1930, after hailing a cab (not yellow) upon leaving a restaurant on West 45th Street after having dinner with some people. He was actually unheard from for a month before anyone officially notified anyone that perhaps something happened to him. And he had friends. And a wife.

The Judge Crater case is a true story. The Judge has been missing for 80 years. This is longer than Jimmy Hoffa, and just as unexplained. No doubt someone's speculation is true. But which one?

Mr. Quinn's detective, Fintan Dunne, through logic, interviews, old police contacts, favors and speculation of his own, solves the case. Or, does he?

Of course we know, however, that Judge Crater is still considered missing, and the circumstances unexplained. But after reading the book you do accept that the Judge is still missing. Yes, but should he be?

As Mr Quinn observes, if the interest of the living brings some comfort to the dead, then whatever the circumstances of the Judge's demise, he's resting more than comfortably somewhere.

[...]

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars NOIRISH NOVEL OR AUTHENTIC CULTURAL HISTORY ?, September 14, 2010

By 

Louis J. Slovinsky (Katonah, New York, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Man Who Never Returned: A Novel (Hardcover)

Probably few people younger than 50 can identify the famously missing Judge Crater, but many are about to be educated. Peter Quinn's new novel is stylish, noirish, and a fun read. Disabuse yourself that it's just a speculative policier. You can read it as an exotic (sometimes erotic) labyrinthine drama or as a series of trenchant character studies, best of which is the indomitable ex-cop Fintan Dunne, an apostate Catholic who like many Irish Civil Servants just wants to survive until early retirement. I view the novel as a rich cultural history of New York City from the Thirties to the Fifties--as authentic as the era's Elevated Subways and snap-brim fedoras. And well it should be, because the author is a fact-driven historian who happens to be congenitally proud of his Bronx-Irish heritage. Like the media frenzy attending three-year-old Kathy Fiscus's fall into an abandoned California well in 1949 (Woody Allen's "Radio Days") and the daily updated saga of spelunker W. Floyd Collins, trapped alive in a Kentucky cave in 1925 (Billy Wilder's "Ace in a Hole"), Judge Crater's story is played out largely in the Old Media. The "newish" news media likewise is crucial to the Judge's story. Imagine if CNN, Fox News and MSNBC were on hand to search for Crater using real-time helicopter shots and "24/7 in-depth coverage"? It would make OJ's Bronco chase look like a slo-mo saunter over warm chocolate. Nothing about "The Man Who Never Returned" is slow; the pages turn themselves. Recall that "The Grapes of Wrath" was filmed only one year after Steinbeck's bestseller debuted in 1939. Pray that Hollywood options Quinn's tattoo-less book before the Swedes yet again checkmate our movie-making midgets.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent mystery, November 18, 2010

By 

Kait Corrigan "bookworm" (Ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Never Returned: A Novel (Hardcover)

On one level this is just a brilliantly written, tight, engaging mystery novel - when you get into it and realize it is based partly on a historical truth - so meticulously researched by Quinn - well that just makes it a classic. Brilliant read. Impressive writer.