Smokey Rules!
Written: Aug 13 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Marvelous mystery about 1968 Chicago
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: Great job of mixing mystery with a painful, important part of our past
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| dickadler's Full Review: Smoke-Filled Rooms Books |
Kris Nelscott, who writes science fiction under her real name, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, got an Edgar nomination for her first mystery, "A Dangerous Road," set in Memphis in 1968, where she introduced us to a black private investigator named Smokey Dalton. When Smokey's boyhood friend, Martin Luther King Jr., is shot, a 10-year-old witness named Jimmy is the only civilian who knows for sure that James Earl Ray didn't pull the trigger. Pursued by the Memphis police and the FBI, Smokey and Jimmy flee to Chicago -- where Nelscott's second book, throbbing with anger, fear and the frustration of decent people, is set.
So much real drama shook the country during the spring and summer of 1968 (from King and Bobby Kennedy to the street horror of the Democratic National Convention) that it might seem foolhardy to try to add fiction to the mix. But Nelscott has the heart, courage and brains for the job: her scenes of demonstrators fighting police outside the Chicago Hilton (where Smokey gets a job as a security guard) could have come from a documentary, and her fictional characters (including a perfectly-drawn family of friends with whom Jimmy and Smokey take shelter) all breathe and perspire with reality.
Smokey and Jimmy, an abandoned child who lived in a foster home in Memphis, pose as father and son, and their relationship quickly becomes more than a fictional device -- especially since it mirrors a terrible moment from Smokey's own childhood. This is mystery fiction at its highest, most gripping level. The only question is how far down the dirty road of recent history Nelscott is willing to travel.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
dickadler
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Member: dick adler
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 13 members
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