Review: Gritty, top-flight cop novel set in New Orleans will satisfy hardboiled fans
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 25, 2011
I met fellow crime writer Les Edgerton via twitter, and I wanted to check out his novel The Perfect Crime. Its plot synopsis reminded me a bit of Charles Williams' final novel, Man on a Leash, and I'm an avid fan of Charles Williams.Of course, Les's novel is his own creation, and it's a top-flight crime fiction that I read in two nights. Grady Fogarty is a retired cop from Dayton, Ohio, when his brother Jack is knifed during the robbery of his electronics store. The Fogarty brothers are especially close, sharing a mutual dream of pooling their resources and establishing a fishing lodge up in Vermont.A low rent criminal mastermind named Charles "Reader" Kincaid pulled the heist. He wants to cut in on the action with a drug cartel boss living in New Orleans. Kincaid has dreamed up a nasty plan to strap his self-built bomb to the body of C.J. St. Ives, a wealthy banker who is laundering cash for the drug cartel boss. In short, C.J. will then either fork over the six million dollars or else go kablooey. Some complications arise, some bad while a few are good such as Grady meeting Whitney Farver, the romance interest.Much of The Perfect Crime is set in the steamy, exotic milieu of New Orleans. The sharp eye for details and vivid descriptions remind me of James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux series. The eye-patched Grady is as a hardboiled character as any that I've encountered in a long while. Even so, he exhibits a big heart and a wry sense of humor, shades of Charles Willeford. The hammering pace, complex characters, and raw energy propel the narrative that kept me engaged to its ironic ending. Also, check out Les's Afterword regarding the novel's gritty pedigree. Great stuff here.