|
[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
Buy or rent from www.recordedbooks.com Unfortunately, this, the first in Estleman's historical series set in 20th century Detroit, is out of print. Fortunately, it is available from Recorded Books in a superb audio version narrated by Frank Muller It is 1939 and Connie (Constantine Alexander) Minor, now a copywriter, is testifying before a special prosecutor investigating police corruption and organized crime in Detroit during the years of prohibition. 1928. Detroit. The Motor City. Thanks to Prohibition and crooked cops, gangsters make the streets unsafe. Connie Minor, reporter, has been called to help out an old friend who runs a blind pig/whorehouse in various parts of the city. Her symbol is a stuffed rooster in a window. She's now set up shop in a funeral parlor. "Bier in the daytime and beer at night" Hattie the Madame is in trouble. She has a dead John upstairs. Someone put strychnine in the whiskey and the corpse was a local Justice of the Peace. They take care of the body just before Koslowski and his squad come in and destroy the barrels of beer and bottles of booze. He takes the cash box, goes upstairs, sees the naked Texas oilcan, arrests and beats the handiest person, and leaves. An 18 year old, John Danzig, looking for a job, helps Hattie move the body. That's the first time Connie meets the man who will become Jack Dance, leader of one of the "families" of mobs in Detroit. That winter, Connie makes a trip across the Detroit River on a bootlegging run. The quickest way to get the booze to Detroit is to drive across the frozen river from Ontario. It's only 3 minutes away. In 1930, Howard Wolfman, publisher of the new tabloid newspaper, The Detroit Banner, hires Connie away from Hearst's TIMES, and Connie continues to chronicle his friendship with Jack Dance, and the doings of the mobs, in his column in that newspaper. Estleman's places and people come alive in this audio version of WHISKEY RIVER. He also knows the ways of tabloid newspapers. I made a comment before I listened to this book that I didn't think there was any such thing as noir fiction; to me it represents a certain cinematic effort. This book proves me wrong.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, October 2003
[ Top ]
QUICK SEARCH:
Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]
| 
