The Sunday Macaroni Club by
Steve Lopez
hbk out March 98
Published by No Exit Press
at £10
Assistant District Attorney Lisa Savitch has fled her native Boston in the
wake of a personal scandal. But only as far as Philadelphia, where she
discovers that the city of brotherly love reeks as strongly of corruption
as it does of the pollution that daily descends on the city from its
industrial heartlands. Used to high profile, tough cases, Savitch feels
insulted by her assigned task - to nail the Sunday Macaroni Club, a
dinosaur that lingers from the days when neighbourhood politics were owned
by self-selecting cliques who ran their districts according to their rules.
Only a miracle can save the no-hope candidates of the Sunday Macaroni Club.
But when the miracle happens, Savitch suddenly finds herself with the
chance to do the right thing with a case that, if she can break it, will
steal every headline in the state of Pennsylvania.
Steve Lopez rips the lid off local politics in American, and he does it
with wit, energy and a tremendous sense of confidence. The dialogue
crackles off the page, the characters strut their stuff with utter
conviction, the humour is blacker than a politician's heart, and the end
result is a tremendously entertaining novel that zips along with zest but
never loses sight of the serious points it's making about modern America.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
The Sunday Macaroni Club by
Steve Lopez