Mission Flats [Mass Market Paperback]

William Landay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 2004

Former D.A. William Landay explodes onto the suspense scene with an electrifying novel about the true price of crime and the hidden corners of the criminal justice system. Only an insider could so vividly capture Boston’s gritty underworld of cops and criminals. And only a natural storyteller could weave this mesmerizing tale of murder and memory, a story about the hold of time past over time present–and the story of one unforgettable young policeman who ventures into the most dangerous place of all.

By a gleaming lake in the forests of western Maine, outside a sleepy town called Versailles, the body of a man lies sprawled in a deserted cabin. The dead man was an elite D.A. from Boston, and his beat was that city’s toughest neighborhood: Mission Flats.

Now, for small-town police chief Ben Truman, investigating the murder will mean leaving his quiet, haunted home and journeying to an alien world of hard streets and hard bargains, where the fierce struggle between police and criminals is fought for the ultimate stakes.

Ben joins a manhunt through Mission Flats, where cops are scrambling to find their number-one suspect: Harold Braxton, a ruthless predator targeted for prosecution by the murdered D.A. To the Boston police, Braxton is a marked man. But as Ben watches the shadow dance of cops and suspects, he begins to voice doubts about Braxton’s guilt…especially when he uncovers a secret history of murder and retribution stretching back twenty years…back to a brutal killing now nearly forgotten. As past and present collide and a bloody mystery unfolds, only one thing remains certain: the most powerful
revelations are yet to come.

Mission Flats is at once a relentless page-turning mystery and a vivid portrait of a cop’s life. Here are the street corners, courtrooms, and stationhouses; the deal makers, thugs, and quiet heroes. An unforgettable world–and the luminous, boundary-breaking debut of a new voice in suspense fiction–Mission Flats will haunt you long after the final pages.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Forced by circumstances to become a small-town cop, the protagonist of former Boston district attorney Landay's inventive, gripping suspense debut finds himself embroiled in a big-city murder investigation. Ben Truman, the young police chief in the Maine town of Versailles (pronounced "Ver-sales"), tells us early on that he gave up his pursuit of a doctorate in history at Boston University to come home and care for his Alzheimer's-stricken mother. What he doesn't reveal-at least right away-is the true story of his mother's death and his father's alcoholic rages. Landay deals out pertinent details with the finesse of a poker player, first describing Ben's discovery of the bloated body of a Boston assistant district attorney in a rental cabin. Is the discovery really accidental? Is the almost immediate arrival on the scene of a retired Boston cop named John Kelly as fortuitous as it seems at first? Can Ben really be as much of a small-town hick (the Boston cops call him "Opie") as he appears to be? Determined to stay on the case, Ben joins a crew of big-city cops and prosecutors (including Kelly's intriguing daughter) in a search through the blighted (fictional) Boston neighborhood of Mission Flats for the answer to the ADA's murder and a 10-year-old mystery. As bits of his personal history surface, Ben occasionally seems in danger of violating one of the rules of crime fiction-that the narrator shouldn't lie to us about his role in the story. But Landay's book is such a rich, harrowing and delightful read that few will complain.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Landay uses the slow-paced, elegiac voice of his narrator to lull the reader into the false notion that this is a straightforward mystery starring a somewhat bumbling investigator; in fact, every assumption the reader makes turns into a landmine, which makes for an excruciatingly suspenseful thriller. Former District Attorney Landay sets his accomplished first novel in two places: backwoods Maine, where a way-too-young police chief encounters his first major homicide, and Boston, where the same police chief tries to navigate the shoals of the Boston police and court system. Chief Truman, the narrator, stumbles upon the body of a Boston D.A. in a lakeside cabin. The Boston PD muscles him out of the case, but Truman, undeterred by the all-but-certain knowledge that the murder belongs to the controlling gang in the toughest Boston neighborhood, putzes around on his own. Truman is aided by a retired Boston cop who teaches him fascinating things about motives, blood-spatter patterns, and staged crime scenes. Landay gives us an original detective creation in the humorous, self-deprecating Truman, and he also delivers an action-packed plot with a skillfully detonated final surprise. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Dell (October 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440237394
• ISBN-13: 978-0440237396
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,288 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals
  • #21 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers > Suspense
  • #29 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Literature & Fiction > General > Contemporary

More About the Author

William Landay's latest novel, "Defending Jacob," will be published January 31, 2012. His previous novels are "Mission Flats," which won the Dagger Award as best debut crime novel of 2003, and "The Strangler," which was an L.A. Times favorite crime novel and was nominated for the Strand Magazine Critics Award as best crime novel of 2007. Visit the author at www.williamlanday.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/williamlanday

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is quite a story, October 12, 2003

By 

cindyramone (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mission Flats (Hardcover)

I always like to be surprised by a debut novel, and when it is a mystery novel, all the better. Mission Flats begins twenty years ago when a cop is murdered in a bar, and his killer commits suicide by jumping off the Tobin Bridge in Boston. Then we go to Versailles, Maine, to the murder of a Boston district attorney, found by Ben Truman, police captain a town where not too much happens. Back and forth to Maine and Boston, until we slowly learn how and why so many characters are linked. The ending was a knock-out surprise, and well done by the author. The mysteries and secrets in this book are exquisite for a debut novel, and you will not be able to rest until you know them all. The mark of a good book for me is that I thought about the characters for hours after I finished the book, and as a voracious reader I was not ready to start a new book until I could let them go.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Haunting and Compelling Work that Transcends Genres, September 12, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mission Flats (Hardcover)

I was about a third of the way through MISSION FLATS when I put the book down and picked up the phone. I started calling friends in town, then emailed a few more scattered here and there across the country and around the world, telling them that I was in the middle of a new novel that, in my opinion, would be this year's PRESUMED INNOCENT or A SIMPLE PLAN --- one of those novels that seems to spring from out of nowhere into the national consciousness. More than one friend asked how I could know that before finishing the book; I couldn't answer them. I just knew when I reached page 100 that MISSION FLATS was going somewhere special.

William Landay is a former district attorney and undoubtedly there are a couple of his former colleagues who form the template for at least one of the characters in MISSION FLATS. The main focus of the story is Ben Truman, who at the age of 24 finds himself walking unsteadily in the shoes of his father, Claude. Ben is the police chief of Versailles --- pronounced Ver-Sales, as we quickly find out, a municipality that is more than a hamlet but less than a village in rural Maine. He inherited the job from his father, a bear of a man who people still refer to as The Chief. Ben never wanted the job and never even wanted to be a policeman. He was content with his graduate studies in Boston until family circumstances called him home. He is stuck in the ennui of his surroundings, his job, and a relationship where the emphasis is on "physical fulfillment" until the discovery of a body in a summer cabin changes everything.

The body belongs to Robert M. Danziger, Assistant District Attorney of Sussex County. Danziger is the victim of foul play and there is an immediate suspect: Harold Braxton, a Boston gang leader heavily involved in drug dealing. Danziger's body bears the trademark of Braxton's execution. Given that Danziger was in the middle of prosecuting one of Braxton's underlings and that Braxton was seen in the area prior to the discovery of Danziger's body, Braxton's culpability is a foregone conclusion. Ben Truman finds the investigation slipping away from him, his territorial jurisdiction being usurped by Maine state law enforcement and the long arm of big city Boston jurisdiction.

Truman, in an apparent face-saving gesture, goes to Boston with John Kelly, a crusty, retired Boston homicide detective whose daughter happens to be a co-worker of Danziger's. Truman appears to be a fish out of water, a barely wet behind-the-ears rural policeman thrust into the big city. Truman however is anything but a yokel. He demonstrates in strange, unexpected ways that there is an unanticipated depth to him that makes it unwise to underestimate him.

As the hunt for Braxton proceeds, the trail begins to lead into the past, into the murder of a Boston policeman some 15 years previously and the suicide of a cop-killer a quarter-century before. The link between those incidents, Danziger's killing, Braxton, and the Boston police department form a complex web that becomes more fascinating and intriguing with every page --- with every word --- of MISSION FLATS.

Landay is a marvel; he imbibes into MISSION FLATS and its characters a life missing from so many novels and does it all with nary a misstep. Ah, one comment on that. Landay drops hints along the way that point to where he is going. I mistook a couple of those to be minor, first-time author errors. They weren't. They were guideposts, disguised as bushes. No matter how carefully you read MISSION FLATS, however, to guess the ending is nigh impossible. And the ending resonates with dilemmas, moral and practical, that will keep you thinking long into the night.

MISSION FLATS is a haunting and compelling work that transcends genres and will make William Landay a household name in homes where great literature of any stripe is valued and treasured. This is a novel to be read, studied, discussed and enjoyed repeatedly. Highest possible recommendation.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub from Bookreporter.com

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There is power here, June 7, 2004

By 

John Bowes (Oxford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mission Flats (Hardcover)

Although two infamous Boston search warrant cases fuel the plot(as also "The Cinderella Affidavit"), it is the family scenes that carry real power. The ending is a not-unexpected twist, and the author may have tried too many plot elements, but he shows real potential and his next work is anxiously awaited.