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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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The Fifth
Floor by Michael Harvey |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Scandal Michael
Harvey’s new novel, The Fifth
Floor, reprises protagonist Michael Kelly, a former cop and current
private eye in an engaging tale that connects the past to the present. The
title refers to the location of the office of the mayor of Chicago, and that’s
where a scandal from yesterday and today seems to lead. When the mayor warns
Kelly off a case, his interest increases. Here’s an excerpt, all of Chapter
2, pp. 6-8 I double-parked on
Michigan Avenue,
popped my blinkers, and cruised the FM dial. I was tapping along to a-ha singing "Take
on Me" and.
wondering whatever happened to my inner Led Zeppelin when Fred Jacobs walked
out of the Tribune building. Fred was six feet two and
weighed slightly less than your average house cat. He was chasing
sixty, with an
Adam's apple that earned every bit of its moniker and a head
of black hair the color and consistency of shoe leather. He wore a brown
Ban-Lon golf shirt over a pair of green-and-gold-checked polyester pants
with inch-and-a-half cuffs. His socks were white and his loafers
black. His skin
was yellow when
it wasn't just grim, and an unfiltered Camel hung from rubber lips. Fred was
a lifelong bachelor. Suffice it to say, he didn't get a lot of chicks. What
Fred did get was infor- mation. The man shambling along Michigan Avenue had
won two Pulitzers
and was probably the best investigative reporter this side of Bob Woodward. I
pulled the car
up but Fred just kept walking. I'd seen this before and rolled down
the window. I "You
getting in,
Fred?" He squinted through a layer of
cigarette smoke, motioned with one hand, and talked out of the side of his
mouth. "Keep
moving. I'll meet you around the corner." When
it came to paranoia, the NSA had nothing on Fred Jacobs. I pulled around the
block and waited. It took a minute or two, but he finally slipped alongside
my car and got in. "Just
drive straight." "It's
a one-way street, Fred." "Even
better. Get going, for chrissakes." I
popped the car into drive and found my way around the block. "A
lot of people watching you these days, Fred?" "Fuck
off, Kelly. First of all, you're never anything but trouble. Second, you
don't work my beat. You don't do what I do. So you don't know anything about
what people see and don't see." Like
I said, great reporter. A little touched in the head, but what the hell. "Where
are we going to eat?" he said. I'd
told Fred I'd buy him lunch. He knew that meant I needed information. Of
course, Fred expected something in return. Like a story. Maybe another
Pulitzer. Probably not. But for someone who weighed no more than the typical
calico, Fred Jacobs also liked to eat. Big time. "I
thought we'd go over to Mitchell's," I said. "We're
going to the Goat. Take a left here." I
swung a left off Michigan Avenue and then another at State Street. Jacobs
sucked up the last quarter of his cigarette and pushed the butt out an open
window. Smoke curled softly from each nostril as the reporter rolled up the
window and chuckled to himself. "Got
to hand it to you, Kelly." "What's
that?" "You
stuck it to that TV bitch but good." He
was talking about Diane Lindsay, former Chicago news anchor, convicted
killer, and someone I used to sleep with. "You think so, Fred?" "Fuck,
yes. Talking heads think they invented the news. No respect for journalism.
No respect for the process." "And
putting Diane Lindsay in the slam made that right?" "Didn't make it
right. But damn, it was fun to watch. Pull over here." I
dropped into an empty spot on Hubbard Street and the two of us got out. The
Billy Goat Tavern was located on the lower level of Michigan Avenue. Most
people walked down a set of stairs in front of the Wrigley Building on upper
Michigan. Apparently that was a little too public for Jacobs, so we came in
from Hubbard. "The
Billy Goat isn't exactly low profile, Fred." "Not
a problem. I eat here eight days a week. Someone like you sits down at my
table, what am I supposed to do? So I let you buy me a burger and listen to
your bullshit." "That's
the story?" "That's
the story. Come on." Jacobs
opened the heavy metal door, painted red with a black and-white goat. We
walked down a greasy set of steps and into a Chicago legend. Harvey’s
writing is good throughout The Fifth
Floor, and fans of mysteries, especially the urban noir type will enjoy
the plot twists and the Chicago settings that Harvey captures so well in this
novel. Steve
Hopkins, November 20, 2008 |
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Go to Executive Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the December 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The Fifth Floor.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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