This is Flood's first novel. Nice hard-boiled feel. Set in
Boston in the
mid-1960s. About an assistant DA investigating the murder of
a local
priest. Also involves the theft of a suitcase full of
communion wafers
blessed by the pope and scheduled to be used in the first
English-language
mass to be performed in the U.S. after Vatican II. Meanwhile,
the assistant
DA gets caught up in the election shenanigans surrounding the
retiring DA
and remains haunted by the memory of his father being
fingered as a dirty
cop years before.
A pretty good first novel, and one I think the folks here
would enjoy. It's
available as a quality paperback (larger trade size, not
smaller
mass-market size).
On a related note, how do you experienced hard-boiled readers
feel about
"historical hard-boiled" novels? That is, novels set back in
periods we now
associate with hard-boiled and noir, such as the 1930s, '40s,
'50s and
early '60s. How well can authors successfully make readers
suspend their
disbelief and prevent contemporary issues and attitudes from
entering their
books?
I'd argue that James Ellroy succeeded in his LA Quartet, but
I'd also say
that some of that success relied on the writing style he
evolved during the
course of the four books. But how about other writers? --
Duane
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