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Hot Springs |
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 Hot Springs byStephen Hunter Simon & Schuster 475 pages, June 2000 ISBN 068486360X Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart Before gambling boats dotted the rivers of America, before Las Vegas, before World War II, Hot Springs, Arkansas was the mecca of decadence. Gambling, prostitution, and booze flowed as freely as the hot mineral baths. But Fred C. Becker, Garland County’s newly elected prosecuting attorney, is determined to clean up the Mob’s hold on the southern town located in the heart of the Ouachita Mountains. Becker puts together an undercover team (ala Elliott Ness and the Untouchables) that answers only to him. To start with, he enrolls the aging D.A. Parker, a former FBI man famous for his shootout with outlaws in the 1920s and ‘30s. Next, he enlists Earl Swagger, Medal of Honor recipient for bravery on Iwo Jima and other battles. Swagger is a hard-as-nails ex-Marine who lives by his own personal code of ethics and is dealing with heavy-duty survivor guilt - not only from the war, but from his kid brother’s suicide and his sheriff father’s death in the line of duty. He’s on his way home to Mount Ida with his expectant new wife and a very dull life working at the sawmill. HOT SPRINGS mixes and twists the history of the era with lots of action, and captures the mood of the late 1940s detectives perfectly, complete with tommy guns and low-slung fedoras. Fred C. Becker is based on the real-life former Arkansas governor Sid McMath, but Becker is the complete opposite of the Arkansas legend. Becker doesn’t want to clean up the Spa City as much as he wants his picture in the paper, and as much as he wants to become the state’s youngest governor. Earl doesn’t exactly leap at the chance to train Becker’s elitist group of police officers from around the country, but it sounds better than working at the sawmill and probably getting an arm cut off at some point in his life. The band’s chief mission is to bring down the New York mobster Owney Maddox (based on the real-life Owen Vincent Madden - former owner of Harlem’s Cotton Club and banished to the small southern town by New York City gangsters and politicians) and his gang of goons, the interbred Grumley family. The bullets start flying as the team begins raiding the illegal clubs in search of the Central Book, the phone lines that feed all the racing information into Maddox’s little empire. Stephen Hunter’s latest novel is an exciting thriller, but it does have its weaknesses though. Too much exposition is given through the dialogue, which also appears somewhat stilted at times. All the characters, with the lone exception of Earl, seem more like caricatures or stereotypes from our movie and radio culture. Still, HOT SPRINGS is a fun read full of historical detail and fine twists. |
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