The Third Rail by Michael Harvey
This book was all over the place. I can’t say it was good, bad, or somewhere in the middle. There was a lot to like and a lot to dislike. Like I said, The Third Rail seemed to be going a thousand different directions at one time.
Unlike the first two Michael Kelly novels, The Third Rail alternates between first person narrative from Kelly’s perspective and third person following several other characters. I was used to reading everything through Kelly’s thoughts, but this structure was fine. I just can’t figure out what the author, Michael Harvey, was trying to do.
The first Michael Kelly novel, The Chicago Way, was gritty and raw. The next two have been showier. Both The Fifth Floor and The Third Rail are more typical of other detective novels than was their predecessor. These last two books featured more action, more “romance,” and more heroism. That is not a bad thing; it’s just different from the Michael Kelly that was introduced to us in the first novel.
Also, Michael Kelly has become an overly good guy. He is a guy so morally good that he is no longer very believable. As such, there were situations that made me shake my head. They were too unrealistic. I’ll give you two examples. First is a scene during which Homeland Security wants something Kelly has in his apartment. DHS, along with the mayor of Chicago, break into Kelly’s home while the private investigator is not home. Instead of searching for the item, DHS waits and asks Kelly for it. As it turns out, the item was not hidden; a ten-year old would have found it during a 5-minute search. In reality, Homeland Security would have found the item and left the apartment before Kelly ever showed up—and he may or may not have ever known they were there. The second example is the scene featuring the death of a woman. Someone who really had no true reason to be on the scene killed a woman that Kelly should have killed. But Kelly, the character, couldn’t do that. In The Chicago Way, I believe he would have killed her. It’s almost as if Harvey is creating peripheral characters who exist for the sole purpose of doing the dirty work that he is no longer willing to let Kelly do. I don’t particularly like that.
My biggest issue with The Third Rail is that I felt like was reading a remix of Dennis Lehane’s Darkness, Take My Hand. I am not at all suggesting that Michael Harvey stole Lehane’s story. The two novels had the same feel from beginning. As such, it wasn’t long before I figured out the identity of The Third Rail’s criminal mastermind.
Also, since Harvey utilized third person perspective in telling the story, I would like to have seen more of Robles’ back story. For such an essential character to the narrative of the story, he was in many ways a throw-in. We never learn the “how” about him, and I think the “how” could have added to the novel.
Still, it was a good story, and I recommend The Third Rail to anyone who read the first two Michael Kelly novels.
Among the things I like are the Rachel Swenson storyline. I complained about her after reading The Fifth Floor, but those complaints don’t exist this time around. I like that Harvey has continued the theme of Kelly’s life—nothing he loves sticks around. It just can’t work out for him, and I like that the author has not copped out in that regard. I also love how Harvey keeps the feel of Chicago throughout all the novels. The city is an important character, and I feel the author remains true it.
Although it is not the best, The Third Rail is a good detective novel.
C
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
The Fifth Floor
The Fifth Floor by Michael Harvey
The Fifth Floor is the second of Michael Harvey’s novels to feature private investigator Michael Kelly. After enjoying The Chicago Way, the first Michael Kelly novel, so much, I was in a hurry to pick up The Fifth Floor. I was highly disappointed.
This story is nowhere near as gritty as its predecessor. Not even close. Instead, Harvey tried to do something different this time around. In my opinion, he tried to do too much. Whereas the grittiness and rawness of The Chicago Way created emotional tension, Harvey tried the opposite approach in The Fifth Floor. This time, the story began with the emotional tension and the author tried to use that tension to great the story’s grit. It did not work.
The story begins with Kelly meeting with a physically abused woman in his office. From the very beginning, Kelly’s is drawn in by emotion. He took this case because of his emotions. The plot of the first novel revolved around a case that Kelly took because he was fighting for justice. That element is missing from The Fifth Floor. While it is true that this novel heavily involves Chicago’s corrupt political leadership, the inhabitants of The Fifth Floor of City Hall, Kelly is not looking for justice in his fight with mayor and his cronies. It’s all personal, and it all stems from a relationship that ended fifteen years in the past.
I must say that the characters in The Fifth Floor are more interesting and more complex than those in The Chicago Way. There is much more moral ambiguity in this novel. These are good things. But as I said, Harvey attempted to put too much into this story. Not only does it bog down the story, but it also leads to too many secondary plots. There isn’t anything wrong with these plots per se, but they do not fit into the overall story arc very well. For instance, a federal judge who appeared in The Chicago Way played an unnecessarily bigger role this time. This judge could have fulfilled her plot functions in much the same way as in the first novel, but Harvey gave a bigger role in the second. It felt awkward and unnatural in a way that nothing in the first novel did. There was also an added scene whose purpose seems to be nothing more than showing us how tough and fearless Michael Kelly is. After the PI was thrown in jail, he started a fight with his cellmate. I know why, but I don’t know why. These two are examples that show how cluttered The Fifth Floor was. It just doesn’t flow well.
Other than what was written above, I had two major issues with The Fifth Floor. The first is a break-in of Kelly’s apartment. It was too much of a contrived coincidence for me that the break-in occurred on the first night a particular woman spent the night with Kelly. The fact that the woman was present becomes a big deal for moving the plot forward. Also, after we learn the identity of the intruder, I wanted to know how this individual knew anything about item that was the motivation for the break-in. The item in question was a secret. Not many people knew about it. The only people who could have told the intruder about said item were the men of The Fifth Floor. Those men had no reason to share what they knew with the intruder. It doesn’t make sense to me, and it is a big negative in terms of my feelings about the novel.
The other major issue is that there was a gem of a plot point that Harvey ignored until the epilogue. There were moments that hinted at Kelly thinking about it, but it was never explored. In my mind, it was a more intriguing and potentially more emotional secondary plot than anything involving the federal judge. This would have also created more of the grit and rhythm of The Chicago Way.
More than anything else, it was that rhythm that was missing from The Fifth Floor. For now, I’ll chalk it up to a sophomore slump. I hope The Third Rail does not suffer from the same issues.
C+
The Fifth Floor is the second of Michael Harvey’s novels to feature private investigator Michael Kelly. After enjoying The Chicago Way, the first Michael Kelly novel, so much, I was in a hurry to pick up The Fifth Floor. I was highly disappointed.
This story is nowhere near as gritty as its predecessor. Not even close. Instead, Harvey tried to do something different this time around. In my opinion, he tried to do too much. Whereas the grittiness and rawness of The Chicago Way created emotional tension, Harvey tried the opposite approach in The Fifth Floor. This time, the story began with the emotional tension and the author tried to use that tension to great the story’s grit. It did not work.
The story begins with Kelly meeting with a physically abused woman in his office. From the very beginning, Kelly’s is drawn in by emotion. He took this case because of his emotions. The plot of the first novel revolved around a case that Kelly took because he was fighting for justice. That element is missing from The Fifth Floor. While it is true that this novel heavily involves Chicago’s corrupt political leadership, the inhabitants of The Fifth Floor of City Hall, Kelly is not looking for justice in his fight with mayor and his cronies. It’s all personal, and it all stems from a relationship that ended fifteen years in the past.
I must say that the characters in The Fifth Floor are more interesting and more complex than those in The Chicago Way. There is much more moral ambiguity in this novel. These are good things. But as I said, Harvey attempted to put too much into this story. Not only does it bog down the story, but it also leads to too many secondary plots. There isn’t anything wrong with these plots per se, but they do not fit into the overall story arc very well. For instance, a federal judge who appeared in The Chicago Way played an unnecessarily bigger role this time. This judge could have fulfilled her plot functions in much the same way as in the first novel, but Harvey gave a bigger role in the second. It felt awkward and unnatural in a way that nothing in the first novel did. There was also an added scene whose purpose seems to be nothing more than showing us how tough and fearless Michael Kelly is. After the PI was thrown in jail, he started a fight with his cellmate. I know why, but I don’t know why. These two are examples that show how cluttered The Fifth Floor was. It just doesn’t flow well.
Other than what was written above, I had two major issues with The Fifth Floor. The first is a break-in of Kelly’s apartment. It was too much of a contrived coincidence for me that the break-in occurred on the first night a particular woman spent the night with Kelly. The fact that the woman was present becomes a big deal for moving the plot forward. Also, after we learn the identity of the intruder, I wanted to know how this individual knew anything about item that was the motivation for the break-in. The item in question was a secret. Not many people knew about it. The only people who could have told the intruder about said item were the men of The Fifth Floor. Those men had no reason to share what they knew with the intruder. It doesn’t make sense to me, and it is a big negative in terms of my feelings about the novel.
The other major issue is that there was a gem of a plot point that Harvey ignored until the epilogue. There were moments that hinted at Kelly thinking about it, but it was never explored. In my mind, it was a more intriguing and potentially more emotional secondary plot than anything involving the federal judge. This would have also created more of the grit and rhythm of The Chicago Way.
More than anything else, it was that rhythm that was missing from The Fifth Floor. For now, I’ll chalk it up to a sophomore slump. I hope The Third Rail does not suffer from the same issues.
C+
Monday, January 3, 2011
Second City
The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey
I bought The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey several months ago because Amazon had it on sale for cheap. I’m glad I did.
Most fictional detectives have sad lives and hard upbringings. It seems this is a prerequisite for becoming a good fictional detective. Harvey’s private investigator protagonist, Michael Kelly, is has a life filled with next level sadness. As I said to my wife, the best way to describe how rough Kelly’s life has been is that he’s a White detective in Chicago whose life-long best friend is a Black woman. Yeah, it’s that bad.
Kelly is a 35-year old private investigator who was formerly a detective with the Chicago Police Department. The case at the heart of The Chicago Way is a nine-year old rape of a woman named Elaine Remington. Kelly is approached by his former partner for help solving the case. Fighting for Elaine costs Kelly pretty much everything that matters to him, yet he never backs down. Even though he must meed the Chicago Mob and fight enemies in the District Attorney’s office, Kelly uses every single resource at his disposal—legal or not—to find answers. Throughout this novel, the reader gets to see all the reasons why Michael Kelly is a great detective and a pretty bad everything else.
Following the lead of its main character, The Chicago Way is one of the sadder detective novels I’ve ever read. Without giving anything away, I can say that everything in Kelly’s life takes a pretty sharp downturn in this novel. If he possessed the ability to step outside of himself, I’m not sure he would even want to solve the case that is at the center of The Chicago Way. One could argue that Kelly’s persistence in closing a case is nothing more than masochism. Even in the end, in the novel’s final scene, Kelly undertakes his most masochistic quest.
The Chicago Way is gritty. It’s hard and edgy and dark. And it deals with rape and murder and pedophilia. This is not some cute Hollywood detective story. It’s grim, and not very hopeful. And it’s all Chicago.
As with any mystery, there are twists and turns. I didn’t figure them all out before they came, and that’s a good thing. In most cases, I only saw them a matter of moments before the detective did. In some cases, I was wrong. I like that. The Chicago Way was a fully satisfying read.
I know that Michael Harvey has written two Michael Kelly novels that follow The Chicago Way. I will begin reading the next one right away. This was a great debut detective story.
B+
I bought The Chicago Way by Michael Harvey several months ago because Amazon had it on sale for cheap. I’m glad I did.
Most fictional detectives have sad lives and hard upbringings. It seems this is a prerequisite for becoming a good fictional detective. Harvey’s private investigator protagonist, Michael Kelly, is has a life filled with next level sadness. As I said to my wife, the best way to describe how rough Kelly’s life has been is that he’s a White detective in Chicago whose life-long best friend is a Black woman. Yeah, it’s that bad.
Kelly is a 35-year old private investigator who was formerly a detective with the Chicago Police Department. The case at the heart of The Chicago Way is a nine-year old rape of a woman named Elaine Remington. Kelly is approached by his former partner for help solving the case. Fighting for Elaine costs Kelly pretty much everything that matters to him, yet he never backs down. Even though he must meed the Chicago Mob and fight enemies in the District Attorney’s office, Kelly uses every single resource at his disposal—legal or not—to find answers. Throughout this novel, the reader gets to see all the reasons why Michael Kelly is a great detective and a pretty bad everything else.
Following the lead of its main character, The Chicago Way is one of the sadder detective novels I’ve ever read. Without giving anything away, I can say that everything in Kelly’s life takes a pretty sharp downturn in this novel. If he possessed the ability to step outside of himself, I’m not sure he would even want to solve the case that is at the center of The Chicago Way. One could argue that Kelly’s persistence in closing a case is nothing more than masochism. Even in the end, in the novel’s final scene, Kelly undertakes his most masochistic quest.
The Chicago Way is gritty. It’s hard and edgy and dark. And it deals with rape and murder and pedophilia. This is not some cute Hollywood detective story. It’s grim, and not very hopeful. And it’s all Chicago.
As with any mystery, there are twists and turns. I didn’t figure them all out before they came, and that’s a good thing. In most cases, I only saw them a matter of moments before the detective did. In some cases, I was wrong. I like that. The Chicago Way was a fully satisfying read.
I know that Michael Harvey has written two Michael Kelly novels that follow The Chicago Way. I will begin reading the next one right away. This was a great debut detective story.
B+
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