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Storrow Drive
302 pages, Paperback
Published March 17, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 5, 2026
From my review in the Arts Fuse: https://artsfuse.org/326490/april-sho...
Jay Atkinson’s Storrow Drive won over this inveterate T-rider from the get-go with its knowing description of Kenmore Station and its denizens, just one of many settings that will resonate with local readers and beguile those from out of town.
Drawn in part from his 2006 bestseller Legends of Winter Hill: Cops, Con Men, and Joe McCain, the Last Real Detective, the novel is a rollicking epic of the Boston criminal underground, told in salty, sui generis argot by Atkinson’s alter ego Joe Dolan, a multi-hyphenate academic/journalist/gumshoe/ex-hockey player struggling to put together a scoop for the Boston Globe Magazine. He gets a tip from a student whose drug-dealing boyfriend has been robbed, which spurs a renewed investigation into a case that was left unresolved after a messy bust six months earlier.
Among the cops with whom Dolan works is Jimmy Ford, a hard-bitten Mass. State Trooper who is guided by the mantra “go with the flow” and who is “a cold-blooded guardian angel” for his informants, like sad-sack addict Soapy Taylor. Dolan, meanwhile, has put together a motley crew of panhandlers, students, and “the best parking lot attendant since Neal Cassady” to help wend his way through the convoluted, densely detailed plot (as one detective confesses, “I need a flow chart”).
Well-crafted though that plot might be, it is less engaging than Atkinson’s sprawling dramatis personae. It includes such indelible characters as Janice Cozelli, a prostitute and snitch with a colostomy bag and a knack for knifework, and Marty McTavish, a malignant Globe hack redolently described as “a dirty-underwear kind of guy.”
Atkinson’s vivid verbal repertoire is not just streetwise and scatological but also erudite and inventive. It’s a cornucopia of high and low culture, which in the course of a page or two might drop an allusion to Vladimir Nabokov and Ginger Rogers, or to the Zapruder film and The Night of the Hunter, or to Triumph of the Will and The Rockford Files. He also has a knack for similes, which he can overindulge. No matter – this book ranks up there with those by such masters of Boston noir as Dennis Lehane and Robert B. Parker.
— Peter Keough
Jay Atkinson’s Storrow Drive won over this inveterate T-rider from the get-go with its knowing description of Kenmore Station and its denizens, just one of many settings that will resonate with local readers and beguile those from out of town.
Drawn in part from his 2006 bestseller Legends of Winter Hill: Cops, Con Men, and Joe McCain, the Last Real Detective, the novel is a rollicking epic of the Boston criminal underground, told in salty, sui generis argot by Atkinson’s alter ego Joe Dolan, a multi-hyphenate academic/journalist/gumshoe/ex-hockey player struggling to put together a scoop for the Boston Globe Magazine. He gets a tip from a student whose drug-dealing boyfriend has been robbed, which spurs a renewed investigation into a case that was left unresolved after a messy bust six months earlier.
Among the cops with whom Dolan works is Jimmy Ford, a hard-bitten Mass. State Trooper who is guided by the mantra “go with the flow” and who is “a cold-blooded guardian angel” for his informants, like sad-sack addict Soapy Taylor. Dolan, meanwhile, has put together a motley crew of panhandlers, students, and “the best parking lot attendant since Neal Cassady” to help wend his way through the convoluted, densely detailed plot (as one detective confesses, “I need a flow chart”).
Well-crafted though that plot might be, it is less engaging than Atkinson’s sprawling dramatis personae. It includes such indelible characters as Janice Cozelli, a prostitute and snitch with a colostomy bag and a knack for knifework, and Marty McTavish, a malignant Globe hack redolently described as “a dirty-underwear kind of guy.”
Atkinson’s vivid verbal repertoire is not just streetwise and scatological but also erudite and inventive. It’s a cornucopia of high and low culture, which in the course of a page or two might drop an allusion to Vladimir Nabokov and Ginger Rogers, or to the Zapruder film and The Night of the Hunter, or to Triumph of the Will and The Rockford Files. He also has a knack for similes, which he can overindulge. No matter – this book ranks up there with those by such masters of Boston noir as Dennis Lehane and Robert B. Parker.
— Peter Keough
June 30, 2026
On the plus side, this is a fast moving crime drama set among the gritty neighborhoods around Boston, featuring a lot of cop dialogue that sounds extraordinarily realistic, like we are eavesdropping on bored cops on endless stakeouts.
On the minus side, Atkinson overdoes the similes, out Chandlering Raymond Chandler. By overdoes, every page is peppered with a half dozen, like our hero, an investigative reporter, is wearing a fedora and cracking wise with the flatfoots. Also his plot is overstuffed with a lot of unnecessary characters. It could be a leaner book. Obviously setting up for a sequel.
On the minus side, Atkinson overdoes the similes, out Chandlering Raymond Chandler. By overdoes, every page is peppered with a half dozen, like our hero, an investigative reporter, is wearing a fedora and cracking wise with the flatfoots. Also his plot is overstuffed with a lot of unnecessary characters. It could be a leaner book. Obviously setting up for a sequel.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews