Red Chaser: A noir thriller of the 1950s, the cold war and the Brooklyn Dodgers

by Jon Spoelstra

"I went to war poor. Nine years later I came back rich. Along the way, I became known as a Red Chaser. Now, I was going to meet the greatest Red Chaser of them all. Senator Joe McCarthy. Tailgunner Joe himself."

If you enjoy James Ellroy or the Nate Heller books by Max Allan Collins, you'll love this romp into this 1950s history of spies, Commies and the Brooklyn Dodgers.

The novel Red Chaser tosses you right into the 1950s. In the 1950s, you'll meet the kinkiest and most beautiful spy this side of the Iron Curtain. You'll meet Joe McCarthy. Best of all, you'll live the life of Jake McHenry.

Jake seems to have a near-perfect life. After all, he spent five years in Germany after World War II and came back laden with ill-gotten Nazi riches. Being young and rich ain't bad.

Back home in Brooklyn, Jake became a private detective for the simple reason that he needed a pretend job to hide the source of his riches. Mostly, however, he went to Brooklyn Dodgers games at Ebbets Field and drank beer.

Between games, Jake did occasionally work at being a detective. His specialty was looking for candid photo-ops of husbands trying to get a little on the side. Sort of seedy, but not a bad diversion.

Then Joe McCarthy entered the picture. A childhood buddy introduced Jake to Tailgunner Joe. They wanted Jake to steal a secret list of celebrity communists from the Ice Queen, a rich high-society leftist named Arabella Van Dyk. The Ice Queen also happened to be the most beautiful--and most depraved--woman that Jake had ever seen.

The break-in of the Ice Queen's brownstone in Manhattan was easy, but it unleashed a flurry of Russians, North Koreans, J. Edgar Hoover and mobsters in a wild chase for the list.

The backdrop to all this is the greatest pennant race in the history of Major League Baseball. The New York Giants chased the Brooklyn Dodgers all summer long for the National League pennant. That’s the year that Bobby Thompson hit the "shot heard 'round the world." The pennant--and Jake's life--comes down to the last inning and the last pitch at the Polo Grounds in New York City on Wednesday, October 3, 1951.

Red Chaser is a fresh spin on the historical mystery novel. It's fun, it's 1950s noir, it's Brooklyn, it keeps you guessing and when you finish the last page you say, "Wow, that was fun."

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Espionage, Thriller, Noir, Ebooks

352 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2008

About the author

I’m still trying to get my head around the fact that ‘Take Out’ can mean food, dating, or murder.

Somewhere squishing around that thought, I write murder mysteries about old guys solving murders. If you’re under 40, you should pass on these novels. Wait at least ten years, then you’ll enjoy and appreciate them more.

If, however, you’re over 50, these mysteries might hit your sweet spot, well worth the try.

I’m a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, having written eleven novels and four non-fiction books. The Old Guys Murder Mystery series has been, by far, the most fun.

The Old Guys Murder Mystery books are fast reads. Old guys like things fast.

Happy reading,

Jon Spoelstra

Reviews

[Lynx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Red Chaser, a 1950’s noir follows Jake McHenry, chaser turned PI through blackmail, commies, sex, murder and espionage - all while keeping track of the Dodgers progress as they try to make their way to The World Series.

I felt this book had an interesting story line which suffered due to bad dialogue. There were times when sexy and noir felt more like goofy and uncomfortable. That, along with typos, grammatical errors, missing words and repetitions made it difficult to stay in the mood the author is trying to create.

That being said, I do think all these things could easily be fixed with the help of a professional editor. It read as though I was reading a manuscript that had a lot of potential. I was shocked to see the author thank an editor at the end of the novel. The fact that this did have an editor and it still came out with such flaws is deplorable. If it were me I wouldn’t be thanking him, I’d be firing him!

The best written part of the book comes from the baseball sections. The authors passion for the sport as well as its history shines through and makes it exciting, never awkward to read. It also shows the authors capabilities as a writer. I just wish the noir scenes were written with such enthusiasm.

Three stars for the interesting plot line and fantastic baseball history lesson. Give this to a real editor, spruce up the dialogue and this would be worthwhile.

[Kipwilliams · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author very kindly presented me with a $5 Amazon gift certificate to purchase Red Chaser for the Kindle. This is a period piece dedicated to the post-war 1950s, a rough Raymond Chandleresque private investigator, a political conspiracy involving Senator Joe McCarthy, and sex scenes. What's not to like?

Well, quite a bit, unfortunately. The most striking problem I had with the book was the writing style, itself. The author is fond of nicknames. These can be endearing when adding definition and distinction to a character. Used incorrectly, as they are here, they slow down the flow of the story and cause the prose to stumble.

The nickname "Tailgunner Joe" given to Senator McCarthy is clever, at first. Less so, after being used 111 times in a 334-page book.

The story's dangerous femme-fatale was worse. Her real name, Arabella, is seen 21 times, then completely buried beneath her nickname, "the Ice Queen", which we find repeated 363 times. (Or, 1.09 times per page.) I came to dread the mention of these characters, and they were mentioned a lot.

There was also a lack of completeness in character development, most particularly that of the protagonist. Jake McHenry is a wily, resourceful person with a dark and ill-defined past as an OSS agent during World War II. He is rich from mysterious Nazi treasure plundered during the war and hidden from friends, confidants, and the U.S. government behind the façade of a private detective's cash business.

All accomplished with no sign of intrigue or subterfuge seeping into other parts of his personality or slipping into his daily life. We see no sign of him struggling to maintain the pretense of working for his money. No sign of him cutting corners or taking dark shortcuts to get through other routine areas of daily life. No behavior or habits acquired, isolating him from people who might discover his secret.

We're also expected to recognize him as a man of principle, living by his own moral standards. How? Well, mostly from lines like this: "Tailgunner Joe (-- aghhhh! There it is, again!--) hired me in confidence. I couldn't abuse that."

Why? It's never very clear. He can live on a fortune robbed by the Third Reich and stolen by him, in turn, without giving a thought to his own entitlement. Who knows what horrible acts were carried out by the SS to accumulate this booty? What good might the money do for its rightful owners or the millions of expatriates left homeless in the wake of the war? Who cares so long as Jake gets to go to the Dodger's games?

This is, in my opinion, a truly promising idea never delivered on. I don't know how many drafts the author went through before releasing this book, or who helped review it as he went along. My guess is he made the mistake of accepting praise from well-meaning people, without consulting a neutral professional to point out and correct some of its flaws.

I really wanted to like Red Chaser. Failing that, I really wanted to accept the gift of the book without criticizing it for the problems I had reading it. In the end, I don't think that was doing the author any favors or acknowledging my own taste. There are a few things I look for in a novel; engaging characters, a clever plot, and a fun narrative voice pulling me through the story. Red Chaser didn't deliver for me.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read a promotional copy.

The plot was fine, the main character was interesting, but the book needed an editor--or a more forceful editor, if it already had one. This is probably one of the dangers of the e-book era--much easier to self-publish.

The author tries way too hard to put in local color (both geographical and chronological). There is far too much detail than there is plot, which would have been fine for something that is more of a period novel than a thriller, but this is supposed to be (and feels like) primarily a thriller. The level of detail presented could work in a movie, where it would all be part of a rich background, but paragraph after paragraph of background is no good in a thriller novel. The writing itself was a little awkward, and there's an epilogue that does a lot of nudging and winking about Viet Nam and didn't seem to add much other than a lot of nudging and winking.

Half as long, it could have been a decent novella.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1951, Jake McHenry is invited to a bar by an old childhood friend. Jake works as a Private Investigator doing divorce cases, mainly just to cover up his riches he improperly gained when working as a CIA operative uncovering Soviet Russian spy networks. His old friend introduces him to chief Commie hater Senator Joe McCarthy who has a job for him...

And this is just the first few pages of Jon Spoelstra's fast-paced hybrid of a P.I./espionage novel. It is a fun read accented by some dark themes in a internationally dark time. Yet there are some great moves to this story that takes it from three star territory to four stars for me.

First, there is the uncanny sense of era. This is the 50s. It is a prosperous time for most Americans but a dangerous time for many. Some are being blacklisted or blackmailed for their mistakes when they were young. The Soviet Union is a real threat. The U.S. is again in a war, this time in Korea, and everyone is looking over their shoulders. Spoelstra does a really good job at catching the atmosphere and peppering his story with real people and real events. McCarthy is his drunk opportunistic self. His assistant Bobby Kennedy is waiting in the wings (Roy Cohn must have still been on the day shift in the Rosenberg gig), and the Brooklyn Dodgers are their glorious self. Throw in Wild Bill Donovan, Mickey Mantle, Richard Nixon and others and you get the idea. The author's research is quite impressive with only a few small gaffes that do not affect the story (The TV Series Death Valley Days didn't make to the TV screen until 1952 and Ronald Reagan did not become its host until 1965). Yet it is atmosphere that counts, and I can almost smell the beer and Nathan's hot dogs and hear the crowd at Ebbett's Field.

Which brings up smooth move number two. Baseball fans will love the play-by-play descriptions of the Brooklyn Dodgers' 1951 pennant race. The author weaves it expertly into the story. This is not just a sub-plot but an whole separate and essential personality to the entire tale.

Finally, Jake McHenry is a easy-to-root-for hero yet is realistically complex. There's enough darkness in him to make him real yet not enough to overshadow the true villains of the story who may not be who you expect them to be.

So overall this is a fun and unpredictable story that takes you into the not so distant past. Recommended to anyone who loves detective or espionage books and all 1950s history buffs.

[Zach · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a review copy, purchased for me by the author.

I almost quit reading at around the 10% mark, but couldn't bear to write a bad review of a book I hadn't even bothered to finish -- especially not after the author had contacted me directly and bought me a copy. And indeed, 6000 weary kindle-locations later, my opinion of the book did improve, but not enough to take it from one star ("didn't like it") to two ("it was ok").

This reads more like a rough draft of a manuscript than a finished literary work. Grammatical errors, typos, missing words, mismatched verb tenses, and malapropism abound. Combined with the author's tone-deaf, repetitious word choice, they make the book almost unreadable in places. Before I adapted to the writing style, I found myself exclaiming out loud, "are you serious?" or smacking my own forehead in disbelief on almost every page. Consider the following passage, from early in the novel:

The two Korean men were naked. Their cocks filled two of the major orifices of the Ice Queen, her mouth and her vagina. The Korean that was filling her mouth was standing on the bed and the Ice Queen was in a doggy position; the other Korean had entered her vagina from behind her.

This isn't even the most egregious example I could have found; it is, after all, grammatically correct. But it's indicative of the clunky, teeth-grinding writing style.

On the plus side, the plot is relatively interesting, and the main character is complex enough to fill the role cast for him -- although he suffers from the same repetition and grammar issues as his author, a problem compounded by the first-person narrative. I lost track of the number of times Jake commented to himself, "very polite, these Japanese." The historical references, from McCarthy to Korea to WWII to the Dodgers, are a mixed bag. Sometimes they serve an essential purpose as setting for the plot or background for the characters; other times they degenerate to name-dropping, as when Mickey Mantle is introduced for the space of a paragraph to whistle at the main character's love interest.

This book could work if given a thorough scouring by a professional editor, as well as a commitment from the author to pare it down by 40% or so. As it is, I would steer clear.

[Odessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, I don't know too much about baseball but I was able to follow along without being confused. The plot was interesting and I was able to follow along with the great descriptions of an era and area of the country that I do not know too much about.

The writing reminded me of reading a Spencer book, with Hiromi being Hawk.

I really hope there is a sequel to Red Chaser....

Thanks Jon for the good read.

[Rick-Founder JM CM BOOK CLUB · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the most gripping, time accurate thrillers- original and populated with characters on immediately feels a connection to.
The whole McCarthy era has been used as a background for many books- and it was a facinating time- but in Red Chaser- it takes on a whole new dimension- one I have never found more intriquing. VERY VERY HIGHLY RECCOMENDED FOR THOSE WHOLOVE THRILLERS AS WELL AS HISTORICAL NOVELS (NOT TO MENTION BASEBALL!!) SIMPLY- A 5 STAR READ!!

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read.

To begin with, this was the first digital book I've read. I downloaded Amazon's app for reading Kindle books on my pc, then downloaded the book itself from Amazon. Both processes were fast and easy. I've always been a traditional ink and paper reader, almost anti-digital, it was a stretch allow myself to even enter this realm. Not that the procedure was daunting, because it wasn't; rather reading a book without holding the paper in my hands seemed a bit unorthodox. Hell, I spent most of my life in the printing industry, "ink in my blood" as they say. No problem absorbing the text, however. I liked the experience.

As for the story, it was most entertaining and the writing got better as I read further. I read the last two-thirds of the book in one sitting, far more than I intended when I sat down to read yesterday. The setting is Brooklyn in the Summer of 1951. The protagonist is a serious Dodger fan and the plot, one of detectives and spies and McCarthyist Commie hunters, is woven around the Dodger's season. Anyone who knows baseball will already know the tragedy that's looming at the end of the season. It's clear that the fates of the whole lot of them, the spies, the Commies, the detectives and the Dodgers are all hitched to the same star. As I approached the fateful day, everything had to climax together, I couldn't stop reading. (What's the digital equivalent of a Page Turner, a Down Arrower?)

Spoelstra had done his homework and wrote this noir first-person narrative in an enriching historical framework, not just the baseball, and the movie that was projected in my brain played in 1951 black and white.

There were a number of typos that kind of burst my bubble as I read, more than should appear in a published, presumably edited work. Misspellings, omitted letters and extra letters in words always jolt me back to reality.

[Eric_W · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's the Korean War. Business is booming. Baseball is the national sport. If they could bottle the smell of hot dogs on a summer day at the park, someone would become a millionaire. Reds - Russian Reds, not ichink ones -have infiltrated the entire government. They are everywhere and Joe McCarthy has decided to root them out (and if he gains some personal power in the meantime, well those are just the spoils of war.)

Jake, a former OSS agent who tracked down Nazi networks after the war (and made a ton of money in the process) is running a small private detective agency mostly for appearances and to account for his income, when he is approached by an old friend Nick, who brings along Senator McCarthy who wants to hire Jake for a small job. He is to break into the house of the "Ice Maiden", a beautiful commie agent who has a list (McCarthy, like Arlen Specter, was obsessed with those lists that always seemed to remain in his pocket) of reds in government.

Jake takes along a couple of friends, succesfully gains entry to the building and a couple of safes where he discovers not a list of names, but pornigraphic photographs of prominent men in in flagrante delicto (such a delicious phrase, that) with the Ice Queen and one of those is "Tail-Gunner Joe" in positions befitting his nickname. He also discovers drawings that appear to be of a bomb and lots of writing in Korean. Realizing he is getting into the middle of an extortion racket, he turns photographs of everything over to Nick and opts out - he hopes. Then he becomes the target.

I must say that for some odd reason, baseball has been a theme in several recent books. Baseball lore provides an important backdrop to this story (even includes a picture of Ebbetts field, although why is totally beyond my comprehenson) and Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall mysteries by Robert Parker also have baseball lore permeating the story.

[Heather Faville · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will start by saying I'm not the best at putting my thoughts on a book to paper, but....

A Kindle exclusive, or maybe eBooks in general, Red Chaser by Jon Spoelstra is a novel set in the 1950's. It is about a Private Detective, spies, sex, blackmail and baseball and not necessarily in that order. This is the first book of it's kind that I have ever read and I have to say that while, I admit, I do not have a real connection to history or baseball, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, because while there are some aspects I am not totally "into" the story and the characters kept me going. Yes, I did, sort of, skim over the baseball history aspects, but that did not make me want to stop reading. I felt that I was able to learn a bit about Brooklyn in the 1950's and I found that very interesting.

Jake, the main character, is a PI and baseball fanatic, specifically the Dodgers. I liked Jake a lot and while he started out a bit slow come the middle of the book I was hooked on him as a character and I would be very interested to know more about him and any future situations he may find himself involved in.

Overall, an enjoyable read and one that I am happy to suggest as a good read!

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though I'm just about the opposite of a sports fan, a sports-hater I guess, I was actually able to enjoy most of the baseball in this book. It even made me briefly wish I was a person who could love baseball the way so many other people do. There's something elegant and calm about baseball even when people are going nuts over it, like the main character in this book.

This is a good story. While I was reading I wanted to keep reading. The ending surprised me, which was weird. That ending had crossed my mind during the first couple of chapters of the book but I guess I quickly and thoroughly put it out of my mind so that by the time it happened it was a surprise. I think that's a sign of good writing. When you're reading you do tend to think of how a book might end. If the author can take your mind in another direction and end up surprising you with an ending you already considered but discarded, well, that's a pretty good author.

[Gary F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having finished Red Chaser by Jon Spoelstra, I found myself totally engaged in the time and era Jon was creating. Key to the success of any book is the ability of the author to perfectly capture the time and place in which the story is taking place. Spoelstra does this perfectly. You really are transported to 1950s Brooklyn when the Dodgers were the center of the universe. The central story, which involves many colorful characters, a great deal based on real people, is both interesting and gripping. The hero is far from a perfect person and this leads to more authenticity for the book. The fear of communism was very real at the time and thankfully the author does not preach or Monday morning quarterback in a politically correct way. Instead he weaves a taut and thrilling story that never loses steam. Add in many very interesting historical tidbits and you have a gem of a book. Very highly recommended.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm about half-way through the book -- the story is entertaining and Jake is a good guy - Not being a big baseball fan and totally ignorant about its history, I am not reading the many sections about the pennant race with a lot of attention.

I have to say that the editing on the Kindle version is atrocious! I hope that the actual book doesn't have these problems with grammar, spelling and ommitted words - it's really annoying, because I can't mark the book with corrections (which I do when I'm reading a physical book) for the sake of the person who'll read it after me, and OK, I admit it, because I'm a snob and don't want anyone to read a book that I've read that has any errors in it and think I didn't notice :-)

[Jan C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Actually I think this is 1 1/2.

I didn't really like very much of it. I did like the baseball part.

And, so, I finally finished it last night. And I think I kind of liked the ending.

I did like the writing style. Without that I would have given up long ago. And I did come close to giving up a couple of times. But I kept sticking it out. And I guess I liked the ending. All right, maybe it is a legit 2 stars, after all.

My family just hated Joseph McCarthy. That maybe one reason I had such trouble with it.

We got our first television so they could watch the Army-Kefauver hearings. We got our next television (color) so my father could watch football.

Wow, I just noticed - it took almost exactly a year to read this.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Red Chaser is a fairly fast-paced thriller set in the 1950's. Jake McHenry is a WW2 "veteran" who comes home with a fortune gained in ways he is not necessarily proud of. Jake becomes a private detective as a diversion from beer and Brooklyn Dodgers baseball games. He reluctantly becomes involved with Joe McCarthy and his commie chasers through an old school friend.
This is a great mystery thriller with a little history,politics, and baseball thrown in. Jake is an easy to like narrator despite his 1950's racial prejudices. I enjoyed this book and look forward to maybe "hearing" from Jake again.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW, actually that was fun Imagine espionage, intrigue, historical fiction and the Brooklyn Dodgers in one book. Hat's off to Jon for writing a truly smart and engaging book. I love the protagonist Jake, so I kept reading until the finish line. i was not disappointed. If you are a history buff, love baseball, and love suspense thrillers this book will make you as excited as it made me. Read this book it's excellent.

[Steve Nitzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read Jon's marketing books, but this is different. He took me on a tour of the McCarthy era of America. With it's different plots, twists and mysteries I was hooked the entire way. It made me ask when is the sequel.

[Craig Meads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I start this review I just want to make it clear that I love baseball. I follow many teams, but I especially follow and love the Dodgers and their amazing history. When I saw this book was about the Dodgers with a liberal helping of history- or is it the other way around- I knew I had to read it.

Short review it was worth every second I put into it. It's one of those books that once I finished I instantly started reading it again. I always love doing that because it feels in the blanks and I love the magic associated with a book that good.

I just barely finished reading "Red Chaser" today and I loved everything about it. I love the history and the Brooklyn Dodgers angle and how well they work together. The book starts with the Dodgers up 5.5 games of the New York Giants in the 1951 pennant race. The book follows from that point to The Shot Heard Around The World. Even though I knew how this pennant race ended I was still hanging by the edge of my seat.

Besides all the great Dodgers over the years, Richard Nixon, Bobby Kennedy, Edward R Murrow, Joseph McCarthy, Willie Mays, Joltin' Joe Dimaggio and Mickey Mantle also make appearances. That era of baseball really seemed to be on a higher level. Maybe it's because how media was back then and how much fewer options there were. You can feel all that in the above radio call. Since obviously there was no internet, TVs were much rarer than now and a 16 inch TV was considered a big TV. I love how the central character, Jake McHenry, follows the game from the radios of the houses and cars that he's walking by.

Because of this great book the next book I want to read is the classic Brooklyn Dodgers history "The Boys of Summer".

Obviously I love the baseball part, how was the rest of the book? The rest of the book was very good as well. "Red Chaser" alludes to another Jake McHenry novel to be released in 2011, but I can't find any evidence that book was actually released. The central story of the book is about a red headed vixen dubbed The Red Queen. She supposedly has a list of possible communist sympathizers that Joseph McCarthy wants to get his hands on. Yes, that Joseph McCarthy of theHouse Un-American Activities Committee.

Other major characters include Hiromi, Jake's potential love interest. Having a Japanese American be his love interest is an interesting choice. This was just six years after the end of World War 2. Also Hiromi and her family were put in Internment Camps during the war. We also have Jake's childhood friend, Nick, who works for McCarthy. He's the one that bings McCarthy and Jake together. It's that pairing that sets off the action in the book.

Other major factors in the book include the United Nations, the Korean War, World War 2 and the CIA. McHenry served during World War 2, it's where he learned many of the skills he used as a private investigator. He also made some valuable contacts that also helped with the case of The Red Queen.

Over all of these historic events Spoelstra weaves the last part of the Dodgers season in expertly. I'm not sure how he did it so well but it's such a great read. Those Dodgers team were such a hard luck story. They didn't win a World Series until 4 years later. Then in 1957 the Dodgers left behind Brooklyn for the sunnier climes of Los Angeles. The entire history of the Dodgers is bittersweet.

My grade for this book is an A. Of course the fact he worked in the Dodgers helped so much. If you love history, baseball or a combination thereof read this book.

themusicaddict

[Michael A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought Red Chaser was a pretty good take on the 1950s tough-guy private eye genre, with a couple of twists that made it more enjoyable for me. There's a sexy redhead who doesn't mind sharing herself with a variety of men -- that's a staple of the genre -- along with Russians, CIA agents, FBI men, a Japanese artist and a pile 0f Nazi loot collected from Waffen S.S. soldiers after World War II. And there's the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1951 pennant race with the N.Y. Giants -- fans of baseball history will see the climax of the story coming a few chapters before it arrives, or at least the timing of it.

The plot was believable, doesn't rely on acts of God or Nature to proceed, and encompasses many of the fears folks had in the early 1950s. Joe McCarthy is included, too, and, briefly, Mickey Mantle. Jake, the protagonist, is in the Mike Hammer tradition, and doesn't mind offing some bad guys when it's necessary. The violence isn't too graphic, or frequent, and the sex even less so. After I finished the book, I read other readers' reviews, and I think the author did some serious editing after the book was first published and before I read it: Many complaints other reviewers had were missing for me, or maybe I just didn't see them. The writing was pretty good, in the appropriate hard-boiled style -- although near the end of the book I spotted some things I think should have been polished out: repetitive structure in consecutive sentences, minor errors in fact and usage, etc. -- but nothing that really bothered me. By then I wanted to know how the story ended, and did the redhead make it out alive. You can't have too many hot, sexy redheads in P.I. literature, and I wanted this one to stick around.

And, like Jake, I love Hiromi.

Give this book a try. If you're into this stuff, I think you'll like it.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jake McHenry is a rich private detective and Brooklyn Dodgers fan in New York, 1951. He is approached by an agent of Joe McCarthy to get a list of a bunch of commies that she is holding. She's rich too, and loves sex, so has, besides the commie list, a bunch of photos to be used for blackmail. Jack goes to work getting the list, and gets the blackmail photos too. It turns out to be an involved plot, and some famous names, besides McCarthy appear -- Nixon, Bobby Kennedy, Wild Bill Donovan appear. It's a fun book, with lots of killing, and Jack's obsession with the Dodgers is well done, and it dovetails nicely with the great end to that Dodgers season. A readable and exciting book, with lots of real events about that year.

[Karen greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved everything about this book, the story, the characters, the way the author wove fact and fiction together flawlessly, the photos, but I think most of all the memories that this story brought to my mind. Now I was a baby when this story took place, but if you were brought up in New York in the fifties and read this book and also look at the pictures it will take you to that time as it did for me. I first learned of this author when I started to read his “old men” book series. After I was finished with them I wanted to read something else by this author and I came across this book. It is totally different than the series but just as good. I would highly recommend reading any and all of what this author wrote, he is that good.

[Kurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic noir… bimbos, feds, baseball and commies. An enjoyable but easily solvable tale. The PI is a sympathetic, and good-natured Brooklyn native who takes on a case that involves his best friend from childhood and "Tail gunner" Joe McCarthy. Add in a few colorful characters and your off to a certain conclusion. If you are in need a fast-paced and entertaining pulp noir this one will not let you down. Four stars for decent writing and for being well-proofed. Historically accurate with a brief timeline from start to finish. Minus one-star for an undemanding who-done-it that was telegraphed early.

[M. Sprouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting much, after reading the bad reviews. I really don't see the problem. Sure there were a couple glaring spelling/grammar errors, but nothing that got in the way of my enjoyment of this story. The dialogue wasn't bad and I grew to like the main character. His relationship with his boarder/locksmith was charming.

There was plenty of suspense, action, violence and sex. Not to mention a twist or two that you would expect from a spy novel. The Brooklyn Dodger references helped make the characters real and gave the reader a better feel for the setting. I'd certainly be up for reading a sequel.

[John Parikhal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read for lovers of historical detective stories

It isn’t really noir, although it’s got some dark stuff in it and a lot of “necessary” violence. The “bad” woman doesn’t have enough dimension although she is certainly sexy and bad enough. The Brooklyn locale of the early 50s is well done, the historical details add a lot of authenticity, and there is just a bit too much baseball detail although I understand why it is important. However, the story is well told, the “mystery” unfolds and the characters are very well drawn, including Joe McCarthy.

[Allen Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Fun Noir Read Set in the 50's...
A page-turning noir/detective/spy story story that's set at the height of the Cold War in the 50's complete with the Brooklyn Dodgers in an unbelievably tight pennant race, spies, murder, mayhem and oh, so much more. Written in a (more or less) hardboiled style that was nonetheless check-ful of cultural references from the era and a surprising cast of characters, Exciting, suspenseful, and by turns humorous, an overall satisfying read.

[Christopher Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jake McHenry is a wealthy man after WW2 who moonlights as a private detective, doing simple cases. He's picked by Joe McCarthy to dig up a list of commie actors and famous people from a woman. The case gets more and more complicated and involves more problems, and Jake ends up with half the UN after him.

This was a pretty entertaining book that is packed with the sense and feel of Brooklyn in the early 50s especially involving the pennant race that year in baseball. As an old time baseball fan this was particularly enjoyable, and the book really felt like it was written in that time period.

The mystery is pretty straight forward, but it wasn't dull at any point, and Jake is a likable character. I should warn that there is some pretty strong language and sexuality starkly portrayed in this book.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was ultimately pretty good, engaging and moved at a good pace. It gets three stars because the author seemed to really revel in being “politically incorrect” and using some really racist and sexist phrases repeatedly. I get that it was in the spirit of the times, and if it were a few times I could have let it go but the extent to which is continued was just a little too much for me.

[Arrowhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

I truly loved this book. I lived during this era and little did I know that all this was going on. Of course we knew Tricky Dick was not honest, but our blinded patriotism believes what we want to believe. We want our government to be the best it can be, but all this behind the scenes was an amazing historical read.

[joe jurczak · Rating 2 out of 5]

A tough slog

The book feels really long. Back story of the 51 Dodgers dominates the middle part of the book. It goes into alot of detail about that season. The story just dragged along.

[carlton ridenour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed it

Didn't know what to expect. Just saw the cover and the word noir. Sucker for noir novels. In the end it turns out I really enjoyed the book. Look forward to if any for a sequel to give it a shot.