East of the Arch

Joe Keough Mystery #4

by Robert J. Randisi

Keough has been at his job in the Mayor's office for a year and he's not happy. He's been involved in more political functions and fund raisers than investigations. But when bodies of pregnant women begin to pile up on the Illinois side of the Mississippi, the Mayor of East St. Louis asks for help. Now out on loan, Keough heads up the search for a serial killer with only a Mark Twain quoting sidekick and young female clerk as his "task force." At the worst possible time his ex-girlfriend, Valerie, comes back into his life with a problem--the little boy, Brady, who tracked bloody footprints into Keough's life in In the Shadow of the Arch, is in trouble. And as if all this weren't enough, Keough is still trying to adjust to the fact that he has diabetes. When an offer to leave St. Louis to join a special state-wide serial killer squad comes his way, Keough has to make a decision that could change his personal and professional life forever. Throughout all this turmoil, Keough works frantically to discover the perpetrator of these increasingly sick and twisted crimes, before another young woman and her unborn baby are killed.

Filled with modern images of St. Louis, Robert J. Randisi spins another thrilling, multi-layered murder mystery.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

336 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2002

About the author

Robert Joseph Randisi was a prolific American author, editor, and screenwriter, best known for his work in detective and Western fiction. He wrote over 650 books, including The Gunsmith series under the pen name J.R. Roberts, and edited more than 30 anthologies. A co-founder of Mystery Scene magazine, the American Crime Writers League, and Western Fictioneers, he also established The Private Eye Writers of America and created the Shamus Award. Randisi collaborated on novels with Eileen Davidson and Vince Van Patten, and created memorable characters such as Miles Jacoby, Joe Keough, and The Rat Pack. He received multiple lifetime achievement awards and the John Seigenthaler Humanitarian Award.

Reviews

[Dorsi Ciliberti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this on vacation with my husband. We live in St. Louis and love getting a tour of a town we know so well. It was very entertaining and suspenseful.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, now I'm disappointed. Randisi had such a great thing going with Joe Keoughs first three books. This one managed to undo all of that, as well as undermine and fly in the face of all of my recent praise. It's as if the author tried to bring the story into the more modern present, and failed- badly. The tone of this story is just all wrong, compared to the others. It doesn't work for Joe Keough and it doesn't work for me. As others have mentioned, there IS a marked, excessive amount of references to Det. Keough's "New York Attitude", though I didn't actually feel he was pulling any kind of attitude during those times. Rather, he was just being himself, but some other character decided to take issue with it and be an asshole about it. If this book is any indication of why the series ended after just five books, I can completely understand. I was really liking the character of Marc Jeter, and found myself hoping he'd get his own "spin-off" series. I even enjoyed the book and read it avidly, up to a point. The ending just wrapped things up too disturbingly. Too much politics and the ruination of everything that had been building. I'm not saying it doesn't happen in real life, but I sure haven't read of such in other fictional series. I think the author must have been pressured to bring Keough's personal escapades to the level of certain other percieved "ladies man" mystery detectives out there. It's a disappointing sellout- the bedhopping. The women aren't even believable.

Then there are the plot holes. I had hoped, after the advent of Det. Keough's diabetes in the last book, and his neighbor's suspicions regarding his doctor, to have been reading a follow up on that angle- a medical mystery. Instead, nothing is really addressed about Keogh seeing three different doctors in the previous book and really confirming his diabetes. The author just expects the reader to believe it and go with it, though the character continues to waffle about the diagnosis (not to mention accepting it), himself.

And don't get me started on the ending. That was disgusting. And pitiful. Randisi did not do right by his detectives with this mess.

I'm almost afraid to read the next one. It's a good thing my library doesn't have it and it will take me a while to acquire a copy.

[C.J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I learned I was going to be on a panel with Robert Randisi at Killer Nashville, I grabbed the first non-Western, non-RatPack novel of his I could find. This one, a police procedural, hooked me right away. The man (an expression he uses a lot) has written 500 books -- published at least 1 a month since 1982. Like a good TV-series writer, he knows how to get the job done.

East of the Arch gives us the right ingredients in the right order: a young woman's mutilated body spewed up by the Mississippi River; an inexperienced but hardworking local detective (often referred to as "the black detective," which I found jarring); more bodies; a serial-killer expert from a larger police force brought in to take over the case (Joe Keogh, a recurring series character transferred to St. Louis from Brooklyn); a resentful sergeant, an egocentric mayor, & all the high-stakes pressure & infighting that set-up enables. We first meet Joe getting out of bed with a woman, which also sets up his perennial conflict between work & any kind of private life.

Interestingly, Randisi starts stepping in & out of the killer's point of view fairly early in the book. Given that a serial killer is by nature difficult or impossible to empathize with, this helps make the story a plausible duel rather than a good-vs-evil cliche.

East of the Arch is very much in the "guy" noir tradition: men battle in the arena (police stations, bars, cars); women flutter around the edges helping or interfering. It's gripping while you're in it -- the prose, characters, & plot all workmanlike & sometimes witty, but unpolished -- & forgettable afterwards.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have really been enjoying the Joe Keough series by Robert J. Randisi. The stories get better with each book. Without a doubt, "East Of The Arch" has been the best book so far. If you enjoy Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch books or the Elvis Cole books by Robert Crais, I highly recommend that you check out this series. Randisi is just as good as those authors, with a plus being that several of the books are set in St. Louis, at places we are all familiar with. Sure makes for an interesting read.

[J. Ewbank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book by Randisi was a very good read. I enjoyed this book a lot and hope to read more by this author in the future. It was my first book by him and I enjoyed it.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"