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Poison Sky |
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| Poison Sky by John Shannon Berkley Prime Crime 241 pages, 2000 ISBN 0425174247 Reviewed by PJ Nunn Jack Liffey is the quintessential reluctant private eye. Shades of Chandler and Spillane. Liffey tries to avoid the hardboiled stuff, though. He basically searches for missing people. This time, Faye Mardesich hires him to find her seventeen-year-old son, Jimmy, who’s been missing for two weeks. It seems a pretty straightforward case to Jack until his girlfriend is tied and beaten, then a friend’s computer is wiped clean from the inside. He’d thought he was investigating one of many LA cults because little Jimmy just finally got fed up with dysfunctional suburbia and went off in search of greatness, but now he’s not so sure what he’s looking for. Doggedly persisting, Jack finds the boy, but he’s not all right. It soon becomes apparent that the investigation isn’t over either. Too many unanswered questions – like who are those guys and why do they want me dead? POISON SKY is a contradiction in terms from the first page. Hardboiled with a heart. Everything about the book seems just a little off center. The characters are real and easy to follow. The mystery is a little convoluted, but manages to keep things moving. The strength of the book is found in Liffey, the everyday gumshoe just trying to live through another day and hoping to find the occasional silver lining behind the perpetual bank of dark clouds that follows him wherever he goes. It’s an old-fashioned private eye novel, updated to present times, without sacrificing the atmosphere so many early fans loved so much. |
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