Customer Reviews

Suspension

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In the Spring of 1883 Colonel Washington Roebling, with the help of his wife Emily, sets out to complete the world's largest suspension bridge that would span across the vast expanse of New York's East River. What Roebling does not know is that a rogue group of former Confederate soldiers hold him personally responsible for a horrible incident that happened years ago on the battlefields of Gettysburg, and have labored for years to destroy his bridge. When one of Roebling's workers is found dead in a dingy alley, a maverick detective named Tom Braddock is assigned to the case. Tom is a good cop with a heart of gold, but his past is not exactly stellar. Not only does he have to deal with the pressures of leading an unsolved murder investigation, but he must also contend with the saboteurs who are closer than ever to implementing their plans, officials within his own department who want to bury him in a life of corruption, and Mike, the dead man`s son who literally holds the key to solving this case. If Tom can manage to stay alive, he might be able to save the bridge, and possibly build a life with Mary, a beautiful, but unusual woman who keeps him both happy and sane.

From the riveting opening "nightmare" sequence to the final pages of mass hysteria that take place during the bridge's first opening days, Richard Crabbe does a tremendous job of transporting you into 19th century New York with a ghastly tale of murder and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge as his backdrop.

This is a top notch historical thriller that involves terrorism, police corruption, and bone-chilling suspense. It also includes a few surprises for Civil War buffs and those of us who never really appreciated the beauty of the Brooklyn Bridge. Caleb Carr fans will eat this one up and savor every morsel.

Masterfully done.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel that combines historical fact and fiction about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. Mr. Crabbe weaves a highly imaginative and plausible plot. There are actually two plots: one about the search for a murderer and saboteurs of the bridge, the other surrounding police corruption in 1880's New York City. The story is well-crafted and researched, including the technical details of bridge building, as well as the look of late 19th century New York and Brooklyn, and even post Civil War Richmond, Virginia. Although quite lengthy, the novel never becomes dull. There is a large cast of colorful characters from police captains and cops to street urchins, ex-Confederate Army soldiers and Kung Fu masters, who keep the story moving and keep the reader guessing what is going to happen right up to the very end.

I've never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge before .. but now I will find the time. I always thought I had a special appreciation for the achievement that this bridge represents ... but now I see it in a very different light. I never gave much thought to life in 19th century New York City .. but now I do.

This book changed the way I see these things and that's only one reason to recommend it. It is a compelling story and riveting mystery that brings the people and times to life.

Excellent historical novel with strong characters and superb atmosphere. Beautifully crafted story telling and a wonderful sense of time and place. If you enjoy Caleb Carr, you will love this book. This author has written a memorable novel with realistic characters, suspense, and obvious research. Very highly recommended.

The nitpicker who said "it all goes downhill from there" is just totally wrong. Mr Crabbe has done an excellent job of historical research and his character-development is outstanding. This IS a first novel, and he made mistakes, but the clanger of birds sitting could have been cleaned up by a copy-editor simply deleting the first "Sitting" -- which is the job of the copy-editor. The bridge was made to seem the latest technological marvel, the trials of being a cop in a crooked New York City in the 1880's seemed real, the sufferings of the poor were genuine. Mr Crabbe, unlike a lot of people writing hardware into their story took the time to learn about firearms, he described them without going into boring detail, and he got them right. Some things he perhaps -- almost surely -- got wrong, were that one would wait a long time for the service records of Confederate soldiers to come from the United States War Department, since they didn't hold those records, and I'm fairly sure, as one who took a steamer from Washington DC down to Norfolk, Virginia several times more than a half-century ago, that the voyage from New York to Richmond would take more than an overnight. Contemporary terms definitely alien to the 1880's include "skosh," "Get out of Dodge," and a couple I don't remember, but perhaps the author was merely trying to use terms modern readers would understand. These are minor problems that we hope Mr Crabbe won't duplicate in his next novel. Perhaps the nitpicker who thought the birds should sit only once has never tried to write a novel. It's very difficult. Anyone can write a grammatical sentence with a little effort, but stringing together a number of occurrences, murder, attempted murder, sabotage, construction details, lives of people in a different century, and making an interesting story come alive is a great deal more difficult than writing sentences.

I picked this book up out of curiosity and never expected it to strike as close to home as it did. Mr. Crabbe is an author who obviously knows his subject - history - and has the ability to tell his story as well as Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum. I found his style to be a little heavy-going at times but I think that is because it reflected the literary style of the time period which was the setting for his story. The thrill of the chase, the escapes from peril, the deductive reasoning employed by the hero and much more made this an enjoyable reading experience. However, the parallel between this story set in Post-Civil War New York and current American and world events is chilling. The plot was conceived several years ago but it could very well have been taken from recent headlines describing the attempt by terrorists to destroy the most important American landmark of its day. A very important aspect of the book was the insight into the terrorists' plotting and motivation and their depiction as human beings with a cause. In the end you know why they did what the did and while you gain understanding of them you also know they have to be stopped because what they want is wrong.

"Suspension" by Richard Crabbe is gripping story of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, life in NYC post-Civil War, and wartime passions that still smoldered and threatened to destroy the marvel as it was unveiled. The book provides a fascinating, human look at the diverse people who populated the emerging City at the time.
Richard Crabbe is deft with history, social perspective, emotional exchange, human frailty, terroristic motive, engineering and intrigue. He brings characters from another era to life in a thoroughly enjoyable journey from beginning to end.

I stayed up till 3:30am to finish Richard Crabbe's wonderful first novel. What a cracker of a story! He has captured 1883 New York City in all its glory and grime from its meanest tenements, through its dens of iniquity, to its finest mansions and all the territory and people in between. He seamlessly weaves both fact and fiction into several plot lines which collide in a gripping climax all centered around the building and the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge. Anyone wanting a slice of New York City's past and a marvelous tale should read this book

If your looking for another "Alienist" this is not it! "Suspension" is very deep in historical detail but more adventurous than "The Alienist". It's more along the lines of Maan Myer's (if you are not familiar with Maan Myers then, first, slap your hand with your other, and secondly, go and do an out-of-print search for any of the Dutchman historical series) books than Caleb Carr's in that the prose is very "popular fiction" in its telling although you get some great dialect dialogue!

This is a good find that I hope gets some great press!

NOW GO FIND MAAN MEYER'S BOOKS!

"Suspension," the debut novel of Richard Crabbe, tells two riveting parallel stories -- one of revenge, and the other a powerfully-addictive detective story. Both are set in the vividly described New York City, captivated by the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Crabbe takes the unusual step of opening his novel with a sensitive depiction of his main villain, Thaddeus Sangree, former officer in the Army of the Confederacy. Sangree is haunted by the death at Gettysburg of his beloved, idealized brother, Franklin (and based on how Franklin died, nobody could blame Sangree for carrying a grudge). This experience has instilled in Sangree a conviction that the Civil War hasn't really ended, and he must get revenge against the man he holds responsible for Franklin's death - Union Colonel Washington Roebling.

Roebling just happens to be the chief engineer and driving force behind the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, having taken over for his father after his death at the Bridge. Crabbe masterfully captures how important the Brooklyn Bridge was as a symbol in 1883 -- a statement of the power of Industrial America (i.e., the Northern version of success, not the Southern), and a gesture of healing and bridging gaps to bring a nation together. Roebling has invested so much of himself into the Bridge that he has been reduced to a shell of a man -- he spent so much time in the caissons (the underwater chambers where the foundations of the Bridge were built) that the "bends" -- which were unknown at the time -- prevent him from any strenuous work. Rather than just kill Roebling, Sangree and his band of saboteurs want to bring down the Bridge itself. What better revenge could former Confederates wreak on Roebling than to destroy his life's work?

Loose lips force Sangree and cohorts to kill bridge-worker Terrence Bucklin, and this brings NYC Detective Tom Braddock onto the scene. Braddock, a detective's detective (i.e., he'll crack your skull if that's what it takes to get your tale, but only as a last resort, and he'll sure feel bad about it), pursues Bucklin's murderers with a doggedness that is truly inspiring. While there is plenty of action in "Suspension," Crabbe shows the less-glamorous side of detective work, as well - perhaps as an author he relates to the adage that the detective's best asset is "an iron butt," due to all the book-work that has to be done.

As Braddock gets closer to his marks, Crabbe brings New York City to life -- particularly the tenements -- through vivid descriptions and clever attention to detail. Only an author steeped in New York City could offer such precise details as the varying odors emerging from various parts of the industrial city, and Crabbe also gives us a few street urchins for local color and humor.

I particularly enjoyed reading "Suspension" after reading David McCullough's magnificent history of the building of the Bridge -- one of America's great achievements. This gave me the background to appreciate the aspects of the building that Crabbe was necessarily only able to hint at or make peripheral to the story -- the rampant corruption, the key role played by Washington Roebling's wife Emily in the building of the Bridge, and most importantly, the sheer weight the Bridge possessed in New York City life during the time.

"Suspension" is one heck of a novel, and the fact that it is Crabbe's first is just plain amazing.