Tangled Web UK Review December 2007
The Chicago Way by
Michael Harvey
hbk out October 07
Published by Quercus
at £12.99
It is becoming increasingly difficult to write hardboiled crime fiction.
Changes in law enforcement practices in the last two decades have ensured
that serious crime is handled by large teams of investigators, under strict and
independently-monitored codes of practice. The hardboiled style owes its origins to
the attempts by Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler to introduce an element of
realism into the middle class manor house mysteries that dominated crime fiction
between the World Wars. But it is no longer realistic for a private eye – the archetype
of the style – to investigate serious crime. Hardboiled fiction is usually written in the
first person from the point of view of the protagonist, and always relies on the hero or
heroine being able to make a difference. Even if the protagonist is a police officer,
however, he is unlikely to shine amongst a group of perhaps thirty of his
colleagues. Mr Harvey has thus attempted a particularly challenging first novel: not
only has he written a contemporary hardboiled detective story, but his protagonist,
Michael Kelly, is a policeman turned private eye.
Five years after John Gibbons' retirement from the Chicago police, he hires
Kelly to investigate the rape of a woman named Elaine Remington, the most violent
he ever saw in his career. The suspect disappeared from the cells overnight, and
Gibbons was bribed to stay quiet about it by the chief of police. A few hours after he
hires Kelly, he's shot dead. The police suspect Kelly, who has concerns for both his
own and Elaine's safety. Employing an interesting cast of characters drawn from
friends and former colleagues, Kelly soon discovers that the nurse and paramedic who
originally treated Elaine have both been murdered, and redoubles his efforts. In the
mean time a subplot is introduced when Kelly assists his childhood friend, Nicole
Andrews – a DNA analyst for the state crime lab – with a current inquiry into a serial
rapist.
The novel is strong on characterisation, in the highest traditions of hardboiled
crime, and Kelly is a pleasant anachronism, a latter-day Marlowe or Spenser who
smokes Marlboros and reads The Iliad in the original Greek. The humour is perhaps a
little strained at times, but with greater confidence Mr Harvey will no doubt achieve
the easy cool of masters like Robert Crais and Nelson Demille. The only real
criticism is of the very short chapters. The chosen format speeds up the flow of the
narrative, but the story has pace and plot enough, and the result is that it reads like a
series of newspaper articles at times, and would benefit from fleshing-out.
For readers who enjoy Chandler, Robert B. Parker, and Crais, however, The
Chicago Way is a must. Mr Harvey has produced a present-day private eye tale in the
classic tradition, with a loveable hardboiled hero at the heart of an entertaining and
exciting Chicago mystery. Harvey and Kelly are, very definitely, a team to watch out
for.
(
Rafe McGregor
)
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