Streets on Fire: A Jack Liffey Mystery

Rating:
Summary: an entertaining book with serious underpinnings
Review: With "Streets on Fire" John Shannon delivers another winning book, as entertaining a read as anything he's done, despite his audacity in throwing some relevant political content into the mix. I have to agree with Charlotte Vale Allen's bewilderment at the vitriol in the PW review--does a genre book have to be witlessly apolitical to be worth a reader's time and effort?

Rating:
Summary: Noir with something extra
Review: With each new Jack Liffey book, Shannon seems to go from strength to strength. I found STREETS ON FIRE even more gripping than its predecessors, as Liffey feels the heat of LA's troubled race relations. As usual he finds himself in all kinds of trouble, both personal and public, with little more than his own unflinching honesty to fall back on. And as usual, Shannon uncovers new layers of the vast and endlessly quirky city that he is making distinctively his own. Like his forebears Chandler and Ross Macdonald, Shannon combines a ruefully affectionate eye for the details of Californian life with a more trenchant vision of American society. Yet in the midst of the tension and mayhem, and the stunted personalities who reflect America's discordant history, we also meet characters who touch us with their creativity, courage, and generosity under fire. I believe that with each new book Shannon's Los Angeles is growing into one of the most fully imagined urban environments in contemporary fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Noir with something extra
Review: With each new Jack Liffey book, Shannon seems to go from strength to strength. I found STREETS ON FIRE even more gripping than its predecessors, as Liffey feels the heat of LA's troubled race relations. As usual he finds himself in all kinds of trouble, both personal and public, with little more than his own unflinching honesty to fall back on. And as usual, Shannon uncovers new layers of the vast and endlessly quirky city that he is making distinctively his own. Like his forebears Chandler and Ross Macdonald, Shannon combines a ruefully affectionate eye for the details of Californian life with a more trenchant vision of American society. Yet in the midst of the tension and mayhem, and the stunted personalities who reflect America's discordant history, we also meet characters who touch us with their creativity, courage, and generosity under fire. I believe that with each new book Shannon's Los Angeles is growing into one of the most fully imagined urban environments in contemporary fiction.