You have to love this period, the early 90's, for Roberts.
The Saxon outing, A CARROT FOR THE DONKEY, gives us a Tijuana
that, while only hinting at the sleaze kent Harrington later
describes in DIA DE LOS MUERTOS, made me want to take a
shower after I read it.
But Milan Jacovich, the big Slovenian from the Heights on
Cleveland's Eastside, isn't an actor picking up cash between
gigs. He's an ex-cop whose black and white view of the world
makes Amos Walker look damned wishy-washy. Just ask Mary,
Milan's girlfriend.
Milan is asked by a childhood friend to look into his son's
activities. The boy is a friend of Milan's sons, and Milan
Jr. says he's become something of an outcast. Milan watches
the boy and finds him dealing drugs for a slick Jamaican
named Deshon. A confrontation with Deshon leads Milan to four
people: an albino named Johnny, a car dealer named Waco
Morgan, a real estate agent with the unlikely name of
Christmas Amboy, and...
Don Giancarlo D'Allessandro, a frequent nemesis of Milan's,
and just as often, an unwanted ally.
The police want Milan to butt out. Milan doesn't care. He
keeps pulling strings even when the boy's parents tell him to
stop for fear he'll be killed. The drug ring has very good
reasons for wanting Milan to butt out. However, when
Giancarlo's nephew, the suave neo-wise guy Victor Gaimari,
calls Milan on the carpet for his rigid views, Milan starts
to wonder how many friends he has left. He claims it's his
old-fashioned Yugoslavian heritage, why Serbs and Croats and
Slovenians don't get along. That's what he tells himself, but
in the end, the reader, at least, knows Milan is just a
stubborn jackass. It's his best character trait, but it also
nearly gets himself killed.
Milan's a blue collar sort working a blue collar town. You
can tell, though, this was written about the time when
Roberts moved to Cleveland as details of the city seem to
multiply. Sadly, one detail, the state of the east side of
town, is as accurate today as it was 15 years ago when this
was written. The area between Midtown and Collinwood remains
an embarrassment to the city. In this story, it's fertile
ground for someone to fill the crack void left by the
mob.
For the longest time, DEEP SHAKER remained out of print,
which is ashame. This is probably the most solid of the early
Jacovich novels, with Roberts' final salvo considered the
best. (It's still hard to top THE IRISH SPORTS PAGES for me.)
Now, however, Gray & Co. has brought the first few book
of the series back, with St. Martin's continuing to publish
the rest of the series. So while I read this in a tattered
paperback (purchased about two weeks before Les shot the
email out saying the old books were now in trade), you have a
chance to pick up a fresh copy.
Respectfully submitted by
Jim Winter
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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