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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply Wonderful,
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,
By
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!,
By Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" (Little Falls, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
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.
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