Customer Reviews

Street Money: A Mystery

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

 

 

Upon graduating from the U of Penn with a journalism degree, former basketball star Andrea "Andy" Cosicki tries to obtain work with local newspapers, but is ignored until her father Benjamin "Benny Lunch" gets her a position with the tabloid Philadelphia Press. Her boss makes it clear that he does not want her, but has no choice as obviously the owners owed Benny Lunch for fixing something. So he assigns Andy the impossible column of Mr. Action problem solver for readers and to assist Shep Ladderbook the obit writer.

Almost immediately following her employment, the police find the body of Benny Lunch in the basement of the burned out Straight Up club. No one knows why he went there, but the death is ruled an accident. When thugs invade her home looking for something that Benny Lunch possessed, Andy wonders if someone killed him over a deal he arranged or that item not found so far. With the help of Ladderbook, who provides newspaper cover and leads, she begins to investigate.

STREET MONEY is an entertaining read that combines elements of an amateur sleuth with a professional investigation. The story line focuses on Andy, as a rookie just starting out so that her actions feel like an amateur sleuth yet because of Ladderbook providing guidance her effort is also professional. Andy makes the tale work as a modern woman not ashamed of being over six feet tall and towering over many of her colleagues. That self-positive attitude makes Bill Kent's novel a joy to read as she digs into her father's death to learn the truth of Benny Lunch.

Harriet Klausner

Bill Kent takes artistic chances and succeeds with riveting intensity in the debut of his new mystery series. "Street Money" teams a gritty old tabloid obit writer, N.S. (Shep) Ladderback, with a tall, striking, but wet-behind-the-ears cub reportor, Andrea (Andy) Cosicki, to delve into the murky depths of political deals, an over-the-edge evangelist, and dark family secrets. Kent paints a vivid cast of powerful characters combining the sensitivity of a Michelangelo with the raw power of a Picasso. "Street Money" is a must for any serious mystery fan.

As a Philadelphian, I was excited to read this book, a mystery seeped in Philadelphia's corrupt politics by a local journalist. This didn't cut it. For all its mentions of locale, this book had no sense of place. It could have taken place in Cleveland.
The characters had no heart. The plot limped along thanks to a seemingly endless series of convenient coincidences, constantly painting itself into a corner and suddenly finding a secret trap door. After all that, the ending was a rushed little chapter tacked on without tying up half the loose ends. It was like author Bill Kent just got sick of writing the thing and stopped. Which is pretty much how I felt reading it.
If visiting Philly by book, do yourself a favor and read all three of Steve Lopez's novels instead. Heck, read W.C Fields's tomb stone.

Honestly, the biggest mystery with this book is how it got published. The author is a newspaper journalist, but he's thrown all his training out the window for this book as it meanders around, seemingly pointlessly, for page after page after dreary page.

Maybe if I'd finished it I would have got the point. I didn't.

Ben Cosicki, known to the world of street-level Philadelphia politics as a fixer named Benny Lunch, "gets himself dead." His daughter Andy, a new journalism grad hired by a top newspaper through her father's influence, takes her dad's death hard. She becomes allied with a career obituary writer named Shep Ladderback who teaches her the power of the obituary desk, a resource Andy uses to try to figure out why her father died

STREET MONEY is an artfully written book that takes some getting used to. The first dozen pages use a rambling, circular narrative style that evokes the world of Benny Lunch. When the story starts focusing on Andy, the narration turns more linear, but it periodically slips back into streetwise patter when Andy thinks about her father, or is simply being her father's daughter.

But the book is definitely worth the effort. It's essentially about the newspaper business, but also chronicles Andy's education about the "real" world, where everything, however unlikely, is tied together. It's a comic novel, with characters and scenes whose humor is sometimes subtle and sometimes downright hilarious. STREET MONEY was great fun! I was sorry when it ended and look forward to the sequel.

Street Money is the most interesting mystery that I have read thus far this year. It is also my first brush with magic realism in the mystery genre. How else can one describe a plot fueled largely by coincidence and felicitous encounter? It starts with the death of Benny "Lunch" Cosicki, successful facilitator of labor problems in Philadelphia and unfolds like an intricate piece of Celtic embroidery.

This is not to suggest that there is any lack of violence or derring-do in Kent's book. Much of the latter is supplied by Benny's daughter, Andy, a fresh-minted Penn graduate who is determined to find out why her father died. Her mentor is an agoraphobic obituary writer name Shep Ladderback at the tabloid Philadelphia Press where Andy has just been hired. He helps her explore the web of Cosicki's relationships which began in an orphanage and stretch from the blue collar neighborhood of Redmonton where Benny tended bar and met Andy's mother to Philadelphia's Main Line.

I hope Kent gives us more Ladderback and Cosiski collaborations.

Bill Kent's tough-as-nails heroine, Andy Cosicki is just right for the 21st Century. She's feminine enough to be vulnerable and tough enough to fight her way out of any mess. And she's smart, which is also true of the writing. I can't wait to read the rest of the series.