Customer Reviews

Mission Flats

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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

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.

I enjoyed MISSION FLATS, but I don't think it lives up to the largely ecstatic reviews it has received.

The first 100 pages of this novel are indeed superb. This novel begins by detailing the everyday life of a young, inexperienced police chief of a small town in Maine. A murder takes place, and the state police swoop in, quickly relegating the police chief to the sidelines. The first 100 pages are a brilliant character study about the police chief's life in this small town, and I really enjoyed them.

Unfortunately, after the first 100 pages, Landay takes MISSION FLATS into a very different direction. The small-town police chief travels to the big city of Boston, and begins investigating the murder on his own. At this point, the plot begins to spin out of control and loses all credibility. Our young hero suddenly becomes a brilliant cop, beds the DA on the case, runs into key witnesses by coincidence, exposes a long-dormant conspiracy, and so on. None of these events develop naturally or believably.

There is an effective twist at the end of MISSION FLATS, but it is based on the narrator deceiving the reader, which really isn't playing fair. The deception does leave something of a bad taste in the reader's mouth. Still, I found the ending a true shocker, and I admire Landay's courage in coming up with an unconventional resolution to the story.

Overall, MISSION FLATS is a good book, but I can't recommend it with enthusiasm, largely due to the plot weaknesses I outlined above.

I finished a great book yesterday, William Landay's debut,
_Mission Flats_. Set largely in a fictional Boston neighborhood,
it nevertheless reminded me a lot of Dennis Lehane's PI books.
Landay is a former DA from Boston, so I guess he has the background
to make things ring true.

The book follows police chief Ben Truman, of Versailles (pronounced
"Ver-Sayles"), Maine, as he becomes involved in the investigation of
the murder of a Boston DA in a local lakefront cabin. Ben had been

a promising graduate student in history when he left school to come
back home and help care for his mother, whose Alzheimer's has been
getting worse. Ben's dad, Claude, is the former police chief and
Ben takes a job with the department to give himself something to do.
Given his family, he is quickly made chief, one of the youngest in
the country, and has a fairly liberal attitude to the dispensation
of law and order. He certainly isn't ready for a homicide investigation
and the other investigators are fairly condescending to him. For some
reason, though, he feels a need to stay involved and, with the help of
a retired Boston police detective, John Kelly, he is tutored in the
workings of a real investigation.

Evidence seems to point to a drug dealer, Harold Braxton, who has been
on the radar screens of detectives in the Mission Flats area for many
years, but who has managed to avoid having any charges stick to him.
About 10 years earlier, Braxton was the main suspect in the shooting death
of a Boston policeman during a drug raid, but a complicated series of
incidents lead to the case being dismissed. Now, once again, Braxton is
one of the main suspects in the killing of Bob Danziger, the DA, who might
have been digging into the earlier crime, intending to re-open the investigation.

This was a great, compelling story, with a lot of insider information on how
the police work, particularly in setting up controlled buys, and so forth.
We are schooled in the workings of a major investigation, as well as the
political issues that run a case, along with Ben, who is deceptively naive.
Ben has several secrets of his own that come out in the course of the
investigation and prove to be potential bombshells. The ending, in particular,
is quite a surprise and requires us to completely revise our understanding of
Ben. He's a complicated character and, ultimately, not particularly likeable.
I don't think this will be the first in a series of Ben Truman mysteries.

Still, Landay is a great writer and this is a memorable first novel. If you
like Lehane's Kenzie/Gennaro series, you'll probably like this, too. Highly
recommended.

Ben Truman is a police chief of a small town in Maine. A college graduate, Ben had high hopes of being a history professor but was drawn back to his hometown to care for his mother suffering from Altzheimer's. Now, as police chief, he performs the same tasks his overbearing father did years before. Ben's world is shattered, in a sense, when the body of a murdered man is found in a remote cabin by the lake. The investigation brings in the feds and involves the Boston Police in that the victim was a district attorney in Boston. Ben feels compelled to help in the investigation especially when through a few strange twists, he finds himself one of the suspects. His search takes him into the grittier sections of Boston and, of course, personal danger to himself .
MISSION FLATS is one of the most compelling character rich debut crime novels of the year. William Landay is a former assistant DA who has now turned to writing full time. Lucky us! This is a novel that will be highly praised and should be in line for all the major awards. It is beautifully written with descriptions that evoke the setting flawlessly. Characters such as Ben Truman are rendered with such care that the reader will feel they truly exist. The supporting cast are rendered with equal attention to detail. William Landay has attempted to write a literary mystery and in that he succeeds handily. When talk is of transcending the genre, MISSION FLATS should come to mind. It is a lengthy work but readers will not mind in that no words are wasted in the details. This is easily one of the best novels of the year and one worth seeking out.

What do you look for in your crime novels? Plot twists? Good cops doing good things and bad cops doing bad things? Good cops doing thing bad things and bad cops doing good things? The seedy underside of the criminal justice system?

Then you will enjoy William Landay's Mission Flats. If you have some leftover funds from your holiday gifts, pick up a copy.

The book starts off with three homicides: the ugly slaying of a beat cop in 1977, the botched drug bust that left another officer dead in 1987, and a dead assistant district attorney in the present. The last murder happens in a small town in Maine. That brings the local sheriff into the investigation of the other two murders.

Before I go much further, I need to let you know that Bill (yeah, I know him as Bill) is a friend. Our sons went to the same preschool. We have been to each others' homes and countless kids' birthday parties.

But you don't have to take my word for how good the book is.

Mission Flats won the John Creasey Memorial Dagger literary award for first time novelists writing crime fiction in 2003.

New York Times Book Review: "Tough but true: a first-time novelist has to bring something new to the table -- something like the trumps that William Landay throws down in his high-stakes police procedural."

Bill is a former was an assistant district attorney before he turned to writing. He brings depth and authenticity to the characters and criminal justice system.

My review may be biased, but I'm also a bit sheepish to admit that after all these years I just got around to reading his book. Now that our kids are not in school together, I wish I had read the book earlier. You can read the chapter one of Mission Flats online if you want to get a taste of the book.

I read the Strangler first and later saw Mission Flats on the shelf in the library so I picked it up. It was a great read. I enjoyed the characters and the feeling of Boston and Maine. As in the Strangler Landay has the ability to make you experience the locales. The characters like Officer Kelly and his daughter were wonderful. I loved the description of swinging the night stick.
I would give the book five stars, but then I read some of the other reviews on Amazon. The ending is a problem. Without giving anything away we only learn at the end that the narrator Ben Truman knows more than he had told us. It is unfair to the reader to withhold the information. I am not sure if that is right so I lowered my rating by a star, although I doubt anyone will really take my rating too seriously.

I await Mr. Landay's next effort. He is a star writer

Landay's debut novel is an easy-to-read, mildly suspenseful, and well-written tale of guilt, family, and murder. Ben, our hero, is a small-town police chief in a Maine village. He's young and intelligent, and he's never realized his full potential in a town so quiet that a broken pool cue is the biggest crime of the year. So when Boston ADA Robert Danziger's body is found several days after a gunshot wound to the head on his patch, Ben takes the opportunity to get swept up in a big-city gangster killing.

He learns much about himself in the process--by his actions during the case, his relationship to the victim and other members of the investigating team, and from a retired police officer who sees Ben's potential as a thoughtful enforcer of the law.

Landay's writing flows easily and is uncomplicated. However, just when you're breezing along with Ben through the bullet-ridden streets of Mission Flats or walking along the shores of a Maine lake in autumn, you'll run across a passage that is truly sublime. I'd quote it here, but I can't do it justice--you'll just have to run across it when you read the book--it's a description of a family's suffering as the mother slowly deteriorates from Alzheimer's disease. The story is written in a narrative style that is engrossing and engaging. Landay's just getting warmed up as a suspense writer, and I sincerely look forward to his next effort.

First novels often have to be given some slack as the author learns his or her craft. Wile the overall story can be highly entertaining; one expects weakness in character development, plotting, or in a host of other areas. In this case, that expectation would be totally incorrect. This dark and very well written novel weaves a complex mystery all the way to a shocking end and works on all levels.

Chief Ben Truman runs the very small Police force in Versailles, Maine. He never intended to be in the Police Department let alone following his father's legacy as Police Chief. Things lately haven't been working out as planned. His mother has recently died from complications of Alzheimer's and his Dad, showing signs of his own failing health, has moved in with Ben. Ben is coping with everything the best he can and his life seems to be getting increasingly complicated. Then he finds the body and from the first arrival of the big city cops, loses control of the situation.

The deceased is Robert Danzinger, a powerful District Attorney out of Boston. Among other cases, the deceased was going after Harold Braxton, head of the notorious Mission Posse gang operating out of Mission Felts in Boston. Ben manages to stay involved in the case and the manhunt begins as secrets from twenty years ago are slowly revealed in a hunt for justice.

This is a slow moving dark read that relies mostly on character development to move the story forward. Not only is the character of Ben Truman painstakingly developed, so too are the characters of most of the major as well as minor figures. As each level is built, contradictions begin that begin to cast doubt in the mind of the reader regarding everyone, including Ben.

Wile a couple of minor plot points are telegraphed early, for the most part, the author manages to confuse and misdirect the reader making the ending a staggering shock. Isn't that the point of reading a mystery? Keep the reader guessing, tell one heck of a story with interesting characters, and then surprise the reader with an incredible ending. That is exactly what he does and why it makes this one well worth the read.