Saint Mudd: A Novel of Gangsters and Saints [Paperback]

Steve Thayer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2007

A haunting story of a dying columnist for a dying newspaper in city wallowing in the Great Depression. St. Paul was home to gangsters like John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Ma Barker s boys. Grover Mudd, the city s premier reporter, wants nothing more than to put them away forever. With the reluctant help of the F.B.I., Mudd targets the killers with his own brand of terror. It is a high-stakes, high-risk gamble for the soul of a city, a game in which Grover Mudd could end up a saint or maybe a corpse.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Enriched since 'wealth' follows by a wealth of historic detail and some evocative writing, this first novel (Thayer self-published an earlier version in 1986) brings to life the uncommon setting of '30s St. Paul, Minn., a safe haven for pimps, gamblers, bootleggers, dope smugglers and bloodthirsty gangsters of every stripe. In his popular column in the financially crumbling St. Paul Frontier News , protagonist Grover Mudd assails his city's cops, politicians and criminals--all of the forces that have brought on its moral decay. Characterized by cynical honesty and truculent wit, "Grover's Corner" alternately elicits anger, respect and amusement from the local citizenry. With the paper on its last legs, Grover and his editor, Walt Howard, mount a front-page campaign against the city's hospitality to criminals and the bloodshed in its streets. Meanwhile, the Feds come to town on the trail of some infamous crooks, among them Baby Face Nelson, Alvin Karpis, John Dillinger, Ma Barker's boys and the principal local villain, Dag Rankin. Lacking the distinctive narrative voice of the best crime fiction and with sex scenes seemingly grafted onto the story, Thayer's novel succeeds best as the story of St. Paul and of Grover Mudd. A contemporary of F. Scott Fitzgerald, in failing health as the result of wartime mustard gas, divorced and in love with a black hotel maid, an occasional opium user working for a dying paper in a decadent town, Mudd holds the reader's interest from start to finish.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This raw, gritty first novel hews fairly closely to the hard-boiled detective tradition, with the twist that protagonist Grover Mudd is a newspaper columnist. The journeyman journalist covers early-Thirties St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the most crime-riddled cities in the country. Against a backdrop of bank robberies, prostitution, drug deals, and money laundering, Mudd uses his columns to alert citizens to the corruption that enfolds St. Paul at all levels. Plenty of violence and some very explicit descriptions of sexual encounters will put off the squeamish, but Saint Mudd tells a realistic tale of how those courageous enough to fight back can ultimately defeat the criminal element dominating a city.
-Patricia Altner, Dept. of Defense Lib., Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 369 pages
• Publisher: Infinity Publishing (October 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0741442256
• ISBN-13: 978-0741442253
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,871,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Wonderful, February 4, 2000

By 

Jason Birkby - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saint Mudd: A Novel of Gangsters and Saints (Paperback)

There are not many writers out there these days that can write a good solid gangster novel. Steve Thayer shows that the gangster novel genre is not dead. Thayer has woven all the elements together to make the reader not want to put this book down.

The story revolves around Grover Mudd, a World War I vet, and now journalist in St. Paul Minnesota. The era is the depression and Al Capone is not the only gangster in the nation. Just up the river from Chicago in St. Paul a new syndicate selling opium is on the rise. Mudd uses his column too expose the mob, and in turn gets himself in trouble with these bad guys.

Mixing in real life mobsters like John Dillinger and Babyface Nelson, Thayer takes the reader on a real joyride through one of this countries more interesting eras. Strongly recommend

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gritty and Fun Historical Fiction, October 8, 2000

By 

Christopher B. Jonnes (Stillwater, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saint Mudd: A Novel of Gangsters and Saints (Paperback)

Thayer's Saint Mudd immediately catches your attention. He drops the "efenheimer" in the very first sentence. He manages to continue the pace and hold your attention throughout the book. What I found pleasantly surprising was the depth of historical research on gangsters and the city of St. Paul, MN and his ability to weave it into the story and make it interesting. I've lived most of my life within 20 miles of St. Paul, and never knew one tenth of the history that Thayer reanimates in this novel. While a fine tale well-written, it is the professional rendering of the history aspect that elevates the book from middle-pack to 4-star fiction.

I would add that Saint Mudd is not a book I would put in my 10-year-old's Xmas stocking. Thayer writes about a time in America when violent death, easy sex, drugs and corruption were commonplace. He uses appropriate language to accomplish this. There's plenty of profanity, sex, and violence. I like that; the PTA might not. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Grover is great!, March 12, 2002

By 

Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" (Little Falls, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Saint Mudd: A Novel of Gangsters and Saints (Paperback)

Steve Thayer authored the best-seller THE WEATHERMAN. Wasn't all that thrilled with the book, hated the ending. It was as if he'd written himself into a corner and settled for the easy way out.
But then I read SAINT MUDD. Thayer really knows depression-era St. Paul, Minnesota: the river caves, the trolley cars, the gangsters. There's a quote from Alvin "Creepy" Karpis before Book One. "But, of all the Midwest cities, the one that I knew best was St. Paul, and it was a crook's haven..."
The lead character, Grover Mudd, WWI veteran and reporter for the St. Paul Frontier News, has that FRONT PAGE kind of newspaper-reporter angst. He smokes Lucky Strikes, drinks Stearns County 13, refers to his ex-wife as that "lousy bitch". There's lots of Minnesota flavor in the book: St. Paul Cathedral, South St. Paul stockyards, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Floyd B. Olson, Cass Gilbert, and the beginnings of 3M, a small sandpaper company.
Two little boys are murdered, hog-tied at the ankles, one a mongoloid, their bodies in the water for a week before being discovered, one with broken legs, and Grover sets out to find the sick-o who did it. Fourteen unsolved murders in the last eighteen months. Twenty-four police chiefs in the last twenty-one years and they can't be fired, only demoted. Along the way, Grover falls in love again, with a colored maid. With Grover's penchant for trouble, you'll worry about her. Although I loved Grover and would just about excuse anything Thayer does because of him, some of the characters, such as Big Holy Spook and Gunderson the cop, are a bit over the top.