Hip-Deep in Alligators

Jimmy Flannery #3

by Robert Wright Campbell

Jimmy Flannery, Chicago's much-loved precinct captain and sewer inspector, pursues his sleuthing sideline in this tale of murder, alligators, drugs, and politics

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

206 pages, Hardcover

First published October 21, 1987

About the author

A screenwriter who turned to writing novels. Many of his earlier books were published as by R. Wright Campbell but later works were credited to Robert W. Campbell or simply Robert Campbell. He also published one book as F.G. Clinton. For more, see his obituary in the Los Angeles Times.

Reviews

[Canavan · Rating 3 out of 5]

✭✭✭

[Basil · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot was interesting and the dialogue is quite funny, but the late 80s ironic racism is difficult to push through. Not just things like the villains and the side characters dropping the N-word but even the protagonist who chides them for such overt slurs is also constantly making racial remarks. I think it's supposed to add "gritty realism" but for me it was moreso just uncomfortable and distracting.

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jimmy is back in the sewers. Can he teach an old urban legend a new trick? Can he teach a sewer crocodile how to turn over? Good continuation of a quirky, humorous, and edgy series. The sewers (and the attitudes) kind of stink, but we have sewer saint Jimmy Flannery to guide us through to a better day.

[Dylan Horsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really fun read.

Murder mystery and alligators in the sewers of Chicago. And everyone has a thick Chicago accent. Hell yeah dude.

[Isaac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but kinda racist tbh

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the third book in the Jimmy Flannery series, a light-hearted series that features a Chicago precinct worker as the unlikeliest of detectives. It is a city where the old world of favor-for-favor is fading out and the old guard is retiring. Flannery is a redheaded Irishman who simply wants to do favors for his community and doesn’t really have an interest in power politics. But, he has a knack for getting involved with dead bodies and situations and cover-ups and he, like any junkyard dog, doesn’t let go once he gets his teeth into something.

In this book, he encounters every sewer worker’s nightmare, a body severed in half by a giant crocodile, but when he tries to find out what happened because, in the natural course of things, there should not be any crocodiles in Chicago’s sewers, he finds people trying to shut down his investigation.

What’s great about this series is the different neighborhoods that Flannery encounters and the down-home way of talking and narrating Flannery has that always make you feel as if you are sitting in a tavern having a beer with him, listening to him spout off wild yarns.

[Sherrill Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it! Sorry no one else did! Robert Campbell (Robert Wright Campbell) takes some getting used to -- his main character, Jimmy Flannery barely (if that) made it thru high school and is in Chicago in the 1980s. But after three or four pages, I adapted to the poor grammar spoken by Jimmy.

Jimmy is a funny, savvy survivor in a world of crooks. His father, Mike, is some help, and his will-be wife is a working class woman.
There is no prejudice, no extra characters (tho there are plenty of those), no misdirection, and at 206 pages it is short and sweet.