Dooley's Back: A Novel of Crime

by Sam Reaves

Dooley is not back even a day, and already he’s helped a gangland punk with a switchblade in his hand and rape on his mind to a deadly fall. And throughout this gritty, hard-boiled crime novel by a master of the new noir, fists work fast, the talk comes tough, and pages turn as swiftly as the rip of a hitman’s bullet. Frank Dooley used to be a Chicago cop, but eight years ago a case of homicide prompted him to take the law into his own hands—the victim was his wife—and then head south, to Mexico. Dooley’s return is met by everyone with surprise, and by a few with pleasure. Like his old partner Roy Ferguson. Roy has had some weighty problems of his own. His seven-year-old son has drowned, he’s gone through a nasty divorce, and a serious gambling habit has buried him deep in debt. Dangerously deep; for an over-ambitious loan shark with the mob, John Spanos, is taking the juice on Roy’s $15,000 score in favors. Dooley convinces Roy he should own up to what he’s done, set up a sting on Spanos, and maybe get back his integrity as a cop. It’s a good plan, but it goes very bad, and Dooley soon finds himself caught perilously between the police force he deserted on one side and the Outfit Roy betrayed on the other. This is a tough-edged urban novel of crime and suspense. “The hard-boiled fraternity has a new member, and he’s a good one.”—Booklist “Gritty, fast-paced, satisfying.”—Publishers Weekly

256 pages, Hardcover

Published August 27, 2002

About the author

Aka Dominic Martell.

Sam Reaves has written ten novels, most set in Chicago, and co-authored the true crime memoir Mob Cop. Under the name Dominic Martell he writes a European-based suspense series featuring Pascual Rose, and ex-terrorist trying to go straight. Reaves has traveled widely in Europe and the Middle East but has lived in the Chicago area most of his life. He has worked as a teacher and a translator.

Reviews

[Timothy Hallinan · Rating 5 out of 5]

At Left Coast Crime, I did what I always do when surrounded by good writers: I asked who I should be reading, and I kept being told Sam Reaves. Boy, were they right. Reaves is just effortlessly good in this story of a semi-disgraced cop who returns to Chicago after years as a semi-fugitive in Mexico, to face up to the past but who instead gets sidetracked into the present. It Ross Thomas's characters are persuasively cynical, Reaves' are persuasively tough -- good and bad alike. This is sort of a model contemporary noir but with a more hopeful ending than most noir, and I can't for the life of me figure out why Sam Reaves isn't a best-seller.

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clean, economical writing. Fast pace. Likeable and relatively well-drawn main character. Convincing portrait of Chicago. On the other hand, this is yet another book about Chicago Outfit. The book reads like a fairy tale for adults. Cartoonish bad guys lose, good guys win. The plot gets gradually more and more improbable to the point that at the end it feels like a treatment for a Hollywood movie (there is even a device for a sequel). Still, there are more painful ways of spending four hours than reading this book.

[Greg Tymn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited to read this follow-on to Homicide-69. Unfortunately, this novel didn't pack the punch of H69. It was slow going. The plot held together all right, the last few concluding pages were rewarding in their own way...but the book dragged for me. Perhaps it was because H69 was so good. Perhaps it's just not that good of a detective novel.

If I could describe it as "foggy", some of you might get what I mean. The close environment of a detective novel needs contrast and definition. I didn't see it or feel it.

[David Kentner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book.
It isn't often I actually find a book I can't put down until I finish reading it, but this was one of those.