The Big Boom [Kindle Edition]

Domenic Stansberry (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dante Mancuso, the beak-nosed PI introduced in Edgar-winner Stansberry's Chasing the Dragon (2004), returns to prowl the bars and alleys of San Francisco's North Beach in this solid sequel, a dark, moody excursion into neo-noir. The dot-com boom sweeping the city cuts deep into the old Italian heart of the Beach, with longtime residents ready to sell high and move out, and newcomers desperate for enough money to grab a toehold. When a corpse found floating in the bay is identified as Angie Antonelli, a former lover of the detective, Dante confronts the victim's boss at a startup company and tracks down other employees who have moved on in the volatile job market. Soon the PI meets the crew of killers with a perverse fondness for drowning; he grosses one out with "that thing in the middle of his face…. a crime against nature." Stansberry offers his usual flawless evocation of place in another fine Chandleresque meditation on a world haunted by crime. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The second Dante Mancuso novel (following Chasing the Dragon, 2004) takes place just as the dot-com bubble is bursting and the Bay Area is beginning to feel the shock waves: "It was the double trap, the two-way fix. Prices would go up, but there would be no jobs. There would be money, but not for you, not for me." Stansberry's noir sensibility runs so deep, and his sense of the inexorable grip in which the past holds the present is so strong, that he is able to take a seemingly soulless contemporary phenomenon--dot-com speculation--and give it the same chilling, metaphorical resonance that the postwar noir masters gave to a darkened city street or a tilted Venetian blind. Mancuso, formerly a deep-cover CIA agent, is back in North Beach, where he grew up, working as a private detective and trying to put his life together, but even though the old neighborhood has been transformed--the old Italian families have gone or are being forced out by dot-com millionaires--the echoes remain. This time the past announces itself when the body of one of Dante's former lovers washes up in the bay. Her parents ask him to investigate, and the trail leads both back into North Beach history and forward into that twenty-first-century demilitarized zone where cyberspace collides with flesh-and-blood reality. To all those mystery readers who believe that the classic detective story has played itself out, Stansberry delivers a bracing slap upside the head. And it feels so good. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 297 KB
• Print Length: 276 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0312324715
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1 edition (April 1, 2010)
• Sold by: Macmillan
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001QS9TO8
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #485,330 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars terrific urban noir, May 3, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Boom (Hardcover)

Following the death of his father six months ago, former cop Dante Mancuso returned to his hometown San Francisco and became a private investigator working with Jake Cicero. Currently besides sipping coffee in North beach, Dante is working a missing person's case that hits home. Barbara and Nick Antonelli hired Jake to locate their missing daughter Angie. Dante knew Angie when she was growing up in this neighborhood and even owns a picture of them when he was twelve and she seven. However, he really got to know her when they were both in their twenties. So though he assumes the capricious impetuous Angie temporarily ran away, Dante will do everything he can just to insure she is okay.

After interviewing the parents who he knows so well, Dante learns that the corpse fished out of the Bay is Angie. He changes his inquiry from missing person to homicide refusing to believe Angie committed suicide as some accept. He begins looking into the late reporter's relationships starting with Michael Solano who just broke with her and Jim Rose who left a voice message, but soon finds each clue he follows up on wickedly lead back to his own past.

BIG BOOM, the second Mancuso private investigative tale (see CHASING THE DRAGON) is a terrific urban noir starring a flawed individual who is unable to let the case go as it has turned personal. As Dante uncovers the last days of Angie, he also can no longer deny his own demons from his past. Fans of San Francisco whodunit thrillers will appreciate this strong entry as Dante discovers as much or more about himself as he does in solving what happened to Angie.

Harriet Klausner

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Beach??????, January 31, 2010

By 

Kevin M. Mccarthy "Slugboy" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Boom (Paperback)

OK- Stansberry has written a couple of good books, The Big Boom is not one them. The Characters are thin- the outcome is telegraphed from the first chapter- the motivation of the main character is contrived but here is what really turned me off the book- he just makes stuff up to fit the theme of the book- particularly the way the characters refer to North Beach as "The Beach"- that is a complete invention of the author- I have lived in SF for 15 years and I have never heard that and since I read this book about six months ago I have been asking around and not one person has heard this either. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't make that phony reference about every third page. Why did he do this? I guess it was to make a metaphor for the characters being shipwrecked in their own lives and washing up on the shores etc etc. Like I said Stansberry has written some really good books- pick up The Confession- that is much better. Hey, Ted Williams only had to hit the ball 50% of the time to make the Hall of Fame so I'll cut Stansberry a break......

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Big Boom, August 28, 2010

By 

K. Comaskey "his story" (Honolulu HI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Big Boom (Paperback)

For San Franciscans, Stansberry just can't seem to get the City right. Although he gets more right than in his first book he still doesn't understand that St Peter and Paul is a church not a cathedral (where the Bishop sits). You wouldn't walk by any mortuaries if you were to walk up Columbus towards the bay and turn right on Green. But a nice yarn. And if yr in North Beach and supposedly Italian where is the food?????