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Jack Flippo #5
House of Corrections: A Jack Flippo Mystery
Jack Flippo finds himself drowning in a sea of mistakes again. This time, the hapless PI plunges himself, unwittingly, into a nasty scramble for a load of drug-money in which he has no interest. He's just looking for a little justice and maybe a little love.
- GenresMystery
304 pages, Hardcover
First published August 7, 2000
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 4, 2015
House of Corrections is the fifth and last book in Doug Swanson’s very entertaining series featuring Dallas P.I., Jack Flippo. In this case, the story mostly takes place in Galveston. Jack gets a late-night call from his mentor and old friend, Wesley Joy. Wesley is in jail, charged with murdering two men in a drug deal gone bad. Wesley’s wife, Angelina, can provide him with the alibi that will prove his innocence, but Angelina has disappeared. Wesley pleads with Jack to find Angelina and save his bacon.
Naturally, Jack is anxious to help. The trail takes him to Galveston where he runs afoul of the typical cast of offbeat characters who populate these novels, including a ditzy newspaper reporter with ambitions much larger than her talent, a DEA agent of questionable provenance, and any number of corrupt law enforcement officers.
Poor Jack doesn’t know who to believe or who to trust and is soon up to his neck in bodies, danger and, happily, some world-class sex. As always, it’s a lot of fun to go along for the ride, and one finishes this book, wishing that Jack Flippo had not had such a relatively short run.
Naturally, Jack is anxious to help. The trail takes him to Galveston where he runs afoul of the typical cast of offbeat characters who populate these novels, including a ditzy newspaper reporter with ambitions much larger than her talent, a DEA agent of questionable provenance, and any number of corrupt law enforcement officers.
Poor Jack doesn’t know who to believe or who to trust and is soon up to his neck in bodies, danger and, happily, some world-class sex. As always, it’s a lot of fun to go along for the ride, and one finishes this book, wishing that Jack Flippo had not had such a relatively short run.
December 9, 2018
Between 1994 and 2000, Doug Swanson, a journalist who had been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, published five mystery novels in a series featuring Jack Flippo, a private investigator and former prosecuting attorney in Dallas. House of Corrections is the fifth in the series, but it is the first (and so far the only) one I have read.
As this book begins, Flippo is thirty-nine years old and feeling every day of it. He is contacted by an old friend and one-time colleague, Wesley Joy. Joy's in jail. He was stopped for a traffic violation, driving a car he says his wife borrowed. The police find a little heroin in the car. Not that big a deal - except that the car belonged to two drug dealers who had been murdered in the small town in which Joy was arrested.
Flippo's investigation takes him to Galveston and a search for Joy's missing wife. Also missing are the drugs that the murdered men had and a large amount of money that they were believed to have been carrying.
Flippo's search involves him with: a DEA agent who is trying to become a stand-up comic; a man he once prosecuted named Arthur Murry Murray; an ambitious young woman reporter; Joy's wife; and a number of law officers, not all of them overly conscientious. Flippo also gets to know his old friend Joy better than he ever had before.
Despite containing a large amount of violence and death, this book is primarily comic. Flippo, even at his least honest, is never mean or uncaring and is consistently engaging.
The title House of Corrections would ordinarily refer to a penal institution. I believe here that it additionally refers to the constant readjustments Flippo must make to rapidly changing information and developments.
The uncredited cover of the Berkley Prime Crime 2001 paperback edition has a picture of strange machinery somewhat reminiscent of Fernand Léger paintings from the 1920's. I like it, but I don't see any connection to the story.
My favorite joke in the book is actually in the opening "Acknowledgments":
Those with a keen knowledge of current Galveston may notice that I moved a few things around. I put them back when I was through.
As this book begins, Flippo is thirty-nine years old and feeling every day of it. He is contacted by an old friend and one-time colleague, Wesley Joy. Joy's in jail. He was stopped for a traffic violation, driving a car he says his wife borrowed. The police find a little heroin in the car. Not that big a deal - except that the car belonged to two drug dealers who had been murdered in the small town in which Joy was arrested.
Flippo's investigation takes him to Galveston and a search for Joy's missing wife. Also missing are the drugs that the murdered men had and a large amount of money that they were believed to have been carrying.
Flippo's search involves him with: a DEA agent who is trying to become a stand-up comic; a man he once prosecuted named Arthur Murry Murray; an ambitious young woman reporter; Joy's wife; and a number of law officers, not all of them overly conscientious. Flippo also gets to know his old friend Joy better than he ever had before.
Despite containing a large amount of violence and death, this book is primarily comic. Flippo, even at his least honest, is never mean or uncaring and is consistently engaging.
The title House of Corrections would ordinarily refer to a penal institution. I believe here that it additionally refers to the constant readjustments Flippo must make to rapidly changing information and developments.
The uncredited cover of the Berkley Prime Crime 2001 paperback edition has a picture of strange machinery somewhat reminiscent of Fernand Léger paintings from the 1920's. I like it, but I don't see any connection to the story.
My favorite joke in the book is actually in the opening "Acknowledgments":
Those with a keen knowledge of current Galveston may notice that I moved a few things around. I put them back when I was through.
January 10, 2009
Read my thoughts at: Thoughts of Joy...
April 4, 2010
I didn't finish this one. It was touted as "humorous" and "comical," but the characters all seemed either angry, sad, suicidal or addicted. I didn't find it funny.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews