After the sudden disappearance of two high-priced detectives, former Indianapolis cop Frank Behr—the brooding private investigator introduced in David Levien’s nationally acclaimed novel City of the Sun—is pulled into a case that is harrowing, relentless, and, ultimately, personal.
[quote tk in box, pls]
Early in the dark, Indianapolis morning, Frank Behr’s friend and mentor is murdered—with no motive and no trace of evidence left behind. Behr, a quiet, mountainous former cop, thirsts for answers and retaliation. But before he can make headway in the dead-end investigation, an exclusive private firm approaches him with a delicate proposition: two of its detectives have gone missing, and the firm wants Behr to find out what happened to them. Prodded to take the case by his old boss—the Indianapolis chief of police who holds the strings to Frank’s possible return to the force—Behr accepts.
The search for the missing detectives takes Behr into the recesses of Indianapolis’s underworld, a place rife with brutality and vice—and a stark contrast to the city’s gentle public image. As Behr calls on old street contacts and his hard-boiled investigative skills, he is led deeper into a twisted society of organized crime and an unknown landscape of “pea-shake” houses—low-rent, transient gambling rings staged in condemned buildings around the city. Unexpectedly, Behr uncovers a shocking thread connecting the missing detectives to his friend’s brutal murder, and, in the process, Behr is forced to confront an ominous, deadly new breed of crime family.
Introduced in City of the Sun, Frank Behr instantly attracted critical attention and a devoted fan base, and Where the Dead Lay places Behr on a broader, edgier stage. This extraordinary crime novel stands with the best of Michael Connelly and Lee Child, featuring a brilliantly drawn, ruthless criminal family whom readers will not soon forget, and showcasing the immense talents of David Levien.
www.doubleday.com
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More from David Levien
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Christopher Reich is the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Deception, Numbered Account, and The Runner. His novel, The Patriots Club, won the International Thriller Writers award for Best Novel in 2006. His latest thriller, Rules of Vengeance, will be published in August 2009. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of Where the Dead Lay:
Welcome to the Jungle. Open the first page of David Levien’s terrific new novel Where the Dead Lay and you’ll find your shoes firmly planted on the mean streets of Indianapolis, Indiana. This is tough turf, home to hell-bent criminals, double-dealing lawyers, lost souls seeking redemption, and a brooding P.I. named Frank Behr who, as his name implies, is the toughest of them all. It’s a dark world full of shifty, dangerous characters and Levien paints it as a masterpiece of grays and blacks. We’re talking Caravaggio here. Chiaroscuro. We’ve walked these streets before, in Detroit, D.C., and Miami Beach, with authors like Ross MacDonald, Elmore Leonard, and Peter Blauner. But it’s been a while since a new author has shown up to rival them. Enter Mr. Levien.
His first novel, City of the Sun, established his bonafides. I read it in a day and I came away shaken. This was a crime novel of a different order. Sure it had solid plotting, an unbeatable ear for dialogue, and compelling characters. But it also had a depth of humanity and pathos that lifted it out of the genre. Where the Dead Lay continues in this rich and satisfying vein.
When Frank Behr’s Brazilian martial arts instructor is brutally murdered, Behr is compelled out of friendship, and a student’s duty, to investigate. The serpentine trail leads to the city’s underbelly, notably to the Schlegels, a family of small-time hoods with big-time ambitions, and no compunction about doing whatever necessary to realize them. Levien’s writing shines in his depiction of the bad guys. They don’t come to life so much as walk in your front door, sit down on the edge of your bed, and put a gun to your head. They are real. They are scary. Behr has plenty of his own problems to sort out along the way. The “dead” referred to in the title are as much from the past as the present. It’s Behr’s internal struggles that make him a memorable hero and lend the book its eloquent voice.
Where the Dead Lay delivers on all counts.
It is crime fiction at its finest. —Christopher Reich
(Photo © Katja Reich)
Amazon Exclusive: An Essay by David Levien
Some Things You Need to Know
Many people ask me for advice on writing a crime novel, how to go about it and what they need to know. The question provokes in me the immediate desire that they had asked someone else—say a Hammett, or a Chandler, or an Ellroy, a Leonard or a Child—someone with a pile of books to his name and a patina of mastery, and not me with my two crime titles (City of the Sun and Where the Dead Lay) so far. Though the responsibility and length of a proper answer is daunting, here is a short one: you need to know at least a little bit about a lot.
You need to know a little bit about guns, a touch about surveillance, at least something about police procedure. Some knowledge of the law can be useful, perhaps a basic understanding of fighting and physical violence. You need grounding in the facts or history of crime—the way organized crime works, about various frauds, how a gambling ring takes its profit, the elements of extortion, the layers of a drug operation. This stuff and more is the stock in trade for my character Frank Behr—it’s what keeps him alive—so I’ve had to learn it.
You may not have an ex-police officer, Secret Service Agent, and private investigator for a stepfather (who also happens to be a great guy) as I am fortunate to, or count amongst your friends ex-cops and various experts in the field. But if you can get a ride-along or develop some relationships with law enforcement, it will surely help.
More than all that though, you need a sense, or at least a theory or idea, as to why these people do what they do. This goes for the bad guys as well as the good guys, your heroes and your villains alike. Whether you are dealing with dissociative personalities, sociopaths, or full-blown psychopaths, or drawing the obsessive types who pursue them. What makes them get started crossing that line, or trying to hold it, and what makes them keep going when the odds are against them? It’s not easy supporting oneself by scamming or dealing or boosting, and it’s no easier trying to stop it.
Oh yeah, then you’ve got to write it all down. Now that’s the part where real advice is called for, and again, please ask someone better qualified than me to give it. But if you do set out, and you happen to find yourself frozen by the specter of the thousands upon thousands of crime books, many of them true works of literature, that have come before yours, you could always resort to what so many of the greats have from time to time—steal a little.—David Levien
(Photo © Peter Andrews)
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Very Disappointing,
By
This review is from: Where the Dead Lay (Hardcover)
The debut novel of the Frank Behr series by David Levien - "City of the Sun" - was hands-down terrific, and I gave it a five star review last year. When I saw the second book of the series was out, I snapped it up in eager anticipation. Unfortunately, "Where the Dead Lay" fails to live up to that early promise, and a comparison of the two books is inevitable. Whereas in "City" Behr was moody and introspective - somewhat like Dave Robicheaux - in "Dead" he just comes across as cranky and mean. Levien successfully enmeshed us in Behr's grief over his dead son in the first book, but barely even tries to do anything like that this time around. At the end of "City" Behr seems to have reached an accommodation with his grief, and at least a measure of redemption for his sense of guilt. But in "Dead" we pick up the character as if that has never happened. Behr's girlfriend Susan is pregnant with his child, he's unhappy about the fact, but there's not really any examination of why that's so. It's almost as if this entire side plot is an afterthought, and isn't dealt with meaningfully in any way... including a definitive resolution. Worse yet, Behr's opponents in this work are a mélange of redneck boneheads without a lick of smarts among them, a trailer-trash family of wannabe crime lords focused on taking over the "pea-shake" market in Indianapolis, evidently a form of gambling similar to the numbers racket that's popular with the lower classes and immigrants. These venal hoods are nothing but dumb muscle, yet somehow have managed to carry on their activities without arousing any interest from the authorities at all. There's an almost incidental character who's a police lieutenant connected to the family through marriage, but this isn't developed in any meaningful way at all, especially as a justification for the authorities' ignorance of this family's activities. I still intend to read the next Behr novel in hopes that Levien will be able to get back on track. But if it's no better than this one, that'll be it for me. Stay tuned...
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Lots of people are dead, they're just not smart enough to fall over and decompose." Mary Burns,
By
This review is from: Where the Dead Lay (Mass Market Paperback)
Frank Behr arrives at his friend, Aurello's martial arts studio and finds that he's been murdered. Frank surmises that it must have taken three men to overcome Aurello.
Something burns in Frank and he knows that it is the need to take revenge on the killers. As he begins searching for their identity, he's asked to look into the disappearance of two private investigators from one of the prestige agencies. At first he declines but his old boss, Capt. Pomeroy, gets him to reconsider with the possibility that it might help Frank get back onto the police force. Frank is told that there are "pea-shake" houses where gambling takes place in low rent, condemned buildings. Someone has been attempting to take over this action and they are killing or beating the people who would be their competitors. As the tension mounts, we follow Terry Schlegal and his three sons, together with a former con named Knute, as they plan to take over all of the pea-shake houses; according to Financial Gary, this would be worth tens of millions of dollars. The novel moves with breakneck speed with plenty of action and violence. The author knows how to write a thriller and captures the reader's attention, not letting go until the final page. I enjoyed the story and the protagonist, a mixture of strength, bravery and integrity with just the right amount of tenderness. The Schlegal family were well described villans, unique in their madness and combined immorality.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Slow Start OK 2nd half,
By
This review is from: Where the Dead Lay (Mass Market Paperback)
I took this book on an overseas bsuiness trip and didn't finish it. When I got home I read two more books before I got around to picking up this one again. I'm glad I did. While the first half marches in place the last part moves right along. The bad guys are a family of toothless trailer park juice heads (but their mom loves them). This isn't a ringing endorsement and there are a lot of better books to read but I actually got caught up in how the hero rounded up the bad guys in the end. The author laid the groundwork for having the hero become a PI and kind of Stone Barrington type "consultant" to the Indianapolic PD and a Kroll type high end PI firm. I'm not tempted but if you like the book more than me then feel free to give any follow-ups a try.
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