Michael Mayo

Like the black and white movies of the early thirties, life would be nothing without the many shades of gray. There are good guys and gals and there are bad in this book, but most of the characters are varying shades of gray. The main character, Jimmy Quinn, lives his life just outside the edge of the law. Jimmy is a man of small stature with a gimpy leg, but he has built a reputation as a man to be reckoned with. He owns a speakeasy in New York that caters to the rich and famous as well as the rich and dangerous. Jimmy’s reputation as a dependable go between has even reached the ears of Hollywood starlet, Fay Wray. Her first big movie, King Kong is just premiering on the silver screen in New York, where Jimmy has been one of the first to catch the opening. She comes to Jimmy’s speakeasy with a retinue of lawyers and hangers on, seeking his help to get her out from under a blackmailer’s dirty thumb. Jimmy already has his hands full with his girl friend Connie in a snit over something that he can’t figure out. What’s on more dame with a problem? Besides he can sure use the six hundred dollar retainer she is offering. With his street smarts it shouldn’t be too hard to track down a blackmailer with dirty pictures purporting to be of the luscious Fay Wray. The hard part is trying to figure out why his girl is giving him the cold shoulder. This is a very entertaining book loaded with the vernacular and idioms of the thirties, which bring this exciting time to life. Book provided for review by Amazon Vine.… (plus d'informations)

Jimmy Quinn knows and has worked for all the big names in crime in NY but an accident while 'running' for Arnold Rothstein has left him crippled and earned him the nickname 'the stick'. Now he runs a quiet safe speakeasy in NY. It is 1932, and the Lindbergh kidnapping is the biggest crime story to hit the papers when Jimmy gets a call from his childhood friend, Spencer. Spence, who has married into an oil fortune, has to leave town and his wife is frantic that their baby will be kidnapped. Jimmy is a deft hand with a gun and Spence hires him to protect his son while he's away.

When Jimmy arrives at the Spencer home, Spence's wife seems frantic but, as soon as Spence leaves, she changes. Soon she is out every night partying with some very questionable friends and the baby seems the last thing on her mind. Something is definitely wrong in the Spencer household and soon Jimmy is caught up in a situation he's not sure he can control.

Jimmy the Stick is an homage to the hard boiled detective stories of the mid-20th century and, like those stories, this novel is more character than plot driven. Like the anti-heros of the early crime pulps, Jimmy is willing to work on either side of the law but he has his own strict moral sense which never falters. There is also the same black and white sense of reality to the book. Despite the fact that most of the characters are crooks and/or worse, there is a clear delineation between right and wrong - some people just deserve to be killed and left unmourned but kidnapping a child is beyond the pale.

Jimmy the Stick is the debut novel by author Michael Mayo and a pretty darned good debut it is. Fans of Spillane and Hammett or of historical detective fiction, this one's for you.… (plus d'informations)