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Buffalo Medicine Books
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SONS OF THE CITY
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My favorite mystery of the last season is a book that didn't get nearly the attention it deserved. Scott Flander's Sons of the City is a cop book that should go directly into the top ten list. Of course it resembles other cop books, the way NYPD Blue resembles Hill Street Blues. What really makes it work for me is the voice. There are excellent cop books by men who wore the uniform and know the job from the inside, but there is still a sort of conspiracy of silence that leaves empty spaces.
Flander has covered the mean streets of his city for the Philadelphia Daily News for many years, observing first hand. But as a writer, not an officer himself. He knows the job intimately, but as a commentator rather than participant. Somehow this gives him more freedom and at least the appearance of greater objectivity. There isn't anything he doesn't feel he can talk about.
Police procedurals detail the minutiae of the policeman's job-the daily grind, the endless paperwork and repetition, the files, reports, interviews and drudge work that, hopefully, lead to a solution in the end. This is the world of fingerprints and mug shots, blood types, ballistic tests and endless canvasses, talking to people who "didn't see nothin'." My favorites are the remarkable series by the husband and wife team Wahloo and Sjowall.
A cop book takes up where the procedural leaves off-going behind the scenes, working the after hours, getting into the heads and personal lives of the characters. Nobody does it better than Michael Connelly. But just when you think there's nothing new out there, a fresh voice comes along to stretch the genre. Sons of the City delivers.
There are two plot lines which may or may not be connected. Steve Ryder, a young patrolman everybody likes, is gunned down in a crack house in the worst part of Philadelphia, almost in sight of his partner. His sergeant is the narrator of the book, Eddie North who has some bad personal history. Just to make things interesting, Steve's sister Michelle is Eddie's new romantic interest. Their dad also happens to be the police commissioner.
The police immediately start rousting every young black man in the city. Racial tensions are already high and it looks like someone is making things worse on purpose, though we don't know why. Street incidents are working up to riot proportions. How does any normal officer keep his cool and objectivity?
But Eddie North has his own problem: small time mobster Mickey Bravelli. He was close to busting Bravelli when he was unfairly busted from the special crimes unit. Is he dirty or did he get too close. Michelle takes a leave of absence to get next to the hood they suspect whacked her brother. Is she taking her work too personally? Now Eddie has a new reason to hate the guy.
So far this is great, if pretty standard fare. Plenty of action, intrigue, romance; all the necessary ingredients. But Sons of the City rises above the genre novel in a couple of ways. First, Flander has a marvelous ear for dialogue. His characters talk the talk in a most convincing way. Second, he has a great sense of humor. Early on we meet a police captain who likes to take naps in his unit. The boys play some spectacular practical jokes on him.
The most memorable-and original--scene in the book involves a pair of officers who are also romantically involved with each other, against regs. Somehow the mike in their unit got turned on and they don't know it. The other guys including Eddie, their immediate supervisor, are frantically trying to find them before the love talk is broadcast all over town. Things are heating up quickly.
Eddie's growing paranoia is the fuel that really propels the story. He knows someone above him is dirty because of his own history. The dead cop's partner starts to lose it big time and Eddie spends a lot of time and energy covering for him. Eddie is afraid his new girlfriend is getting in too deep-and too affectionate-with the mobster he is dedicated to bringing down. And Steve's own father seems to have some real dirt on his shoes. There becomes a real trust factor here in what is a high-stress job to begin with.
Scott Flander's Sons of the City is a dynamite read and Flander is going to be a writer to watch.
We have signed copies of Sons of the City available for $25.
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