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Smoke
It’s 1934, the depth of the Great Depression, but business is good for Martin McDonough, a private eye who is in the right place at the right time. There are plenty of unsolved murders in St. Paul, a city with such a corrupt police force that it has become a haven for trigger-happy gangsters. McDonough is used to solving crimes the easy way, by persuading his copper pals to give him the low down. But when a newspaperman becomes the victim of a gang hit, and his pretty widow wants to know why, things get complicated. McDonough might end up dead, or worse yet, married.
158 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 12, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 19, 2013
In the 1930s St. Paul, Minnesota, was a haven for some of America’s most notorious gangsters. Dillinger, Nelson, Karpis, the Barker gang, and “Machine Gun” Kelly were all habitués of the Mississippi River’s most northern port city. It was widely known in the day that if your favorite killer wasn’t in prison, he was most likely in St. Paul.
Bruce Rubenstein, award winning Twin Cities writer, describes his book SMOKE as historical fiction that contains references to real life criminals who actually did things much as he has portrayed them. Some would be flattered by what he writes, he says, and others would be furious. But they are all dead now so they “can’t sue.”
His St. Paul private eye, Martin McDonough, runs in the city’s milieu of crooks, corrupt cops, and devious politicians of that era, talking the talk and walking the walk. He is hired by a pretty widow who wants the mastermind of her husband’s murder brought to justice. The man she suspects hired the actual killer is well liked while feared as someone who doesn’t take to people crossing him. So, although under some suspicion, he floats around a free man.
McDonough is well connected with the brass of the St. Paul police department and is privy to inside information and gossip. He is also brash and fearless, with the reputation of solving crimes. He agrees to look into the widow’s suspicions and, along the way, gets involved in other situations that eventually lead to the book’s conclusion, which you’ll have to read yourself.
What’s important to know is that Rubenstein is an engaging writer with the chops to put this book together. It’s filled with historical references to the bad people previously mentioned, the vernacular of the 1930s gritty side of society, and subtle humor that makes the book highly enjoyable. There are references of encounters with notorious St. Paul police chiefs John O’Connor and Tommy Brown. McDonough frequents the infamous bars of the area, such as The Green Lantern, and real people known for their shady existence drift in and out of his story.
McDonough even escorts a police rescue squad that attempts to warn John Dillinger of an impending FBI “hit squad’ raid that intends to kill him. If that were allowed to happen, St. Paul’s reputation as a safe haven for gangsters would be threatened. Rubenstein’s description of this actual event is wonderfully written and contains enough confusion, whizzing bullets, and crashing cars to create motion pictures in the reader’s mind. In the end, John Dillinger and his squeeze, Billie Frechette, escape and St. Paul’s lucrative Layover policy of a safe haven remains intact.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The environment is well documented, the dialogue is timely and real, and the storyline, although somewhat dated, is well constructed. Some rambling in the theme and confusion in the characterizations keeps it from getting 5 stars.
Bruce Rubenstein, award winning Twin Cities writer, describes his book SMOKE as historical fiction that contains references to real life criminals who actually did things much as he has portrayed them. Some would be flattered by what he writes, he says, and others would be furious. But they are all dead now so they “can’t sue.”
His St. Paul private eye, Martin McDonough, runs in the city’s milieu of crooks, corrupt cops, and devious politicians of that era, talking the talk and walking the walk. He is hired by a pretty widow who wants the mastermind of her husband’s murder brought to justice. The man she suspects hired the actual killer is well liked while feared as someone who doesn’t take to people crossing him. So, although under some suspicion, he floats around a free man.
McDonough is well connected with the brass of the St. Paul police department and is privy to inside information and gossip. He is also brash and fearless, with the reputation of solving crimes. He agrees to look into the widow’s suspicions and, along the way, gets involved in other situations that eventually lead to the book’s conclusion, which you’ll have to read yourself.
What’s important to know is that Rubenstein is an engaging writer with the chops to put this book together. It’s filled with historical references to the bad people previously mentioned, the vernacular of the 1930s gritty side of society, and subtle humor that makes the book highly enjoyable. There are references of encounters with notorious St. Paul police chiefs John O’Connor and Tommy Brown. McDonough frequents the infamous bars of the area, such as The Green Lantern, and real people known for their shady existence drift in and out of his story.
McDonough even escorts a police rescue squad that attempts to warn John Dillinger of an impending FBI “hit squad’ raid that intends to kill him. If that were allowed to happen, St. Paul’s reputation as a safe haven for gangsters would be threatened. Rubenstein’s description of this actual event is wonderfully written and contains enough confusion, whizzing bullets, and crashing cars to create motion pictures in the reader’s mind. In the end, John Dillinger and his squeeze, Billie Frechette, escape and St. Paul’s lucrative Layover policy of a safe haven remains intact.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The environment is well documented, the dialogue is timely and real, and the storyline, although somewhat dated, is well constructed. Some rambling in the theme and confusion in the characterizations keeps it from getting 5 stars.
August 16, 2014
I've lived in St. Paul and its suburbs my whole life. I'd heard stories of the gangsters that stayed here. I did private duty nursing for the widow, Mrs. Bremer, whose banker husband had been kidnapped in the 1930s. My uncle worked for Brown and Bigelow. So I was interested in the premise for this historical novel. Yes, Charlie Ward was real, met Bigelow in prison, and Bigelow did die drowning in a northern MN lake, just as detailed in this book. I only gave this 3 stars because the ending didn't seem complete. The PI did all the investigating and went off on a tangent yet we never found out whodunit?! Oh, well...
May 26, 2013
I didn't care for this book that much. Not that it wasn't written well. It took place during the depression era, and it was a mystery, but there was too much time-period slang. Some I understood, but most I didn't and it took away from the enjoyment of the book.
June 30, 2014
Ok gangster type novel full of clipped and abreaviated words.I had to struggle to finish it
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews