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Summary
Summary
In their second novel, Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan bring to life the harsh plains and smouldering courtrooms of the Midwest: the small town of Vermilion, Illinois, on the brink of the Great Depression. Boyd Calvin is a troubled World War I veteran on the run from the law, suspected of murdering his estranged wife and her lover. Only a female reporter for theChicago Tribuneand the head of a sanitarium for veterans are not convinced of Boyd's guilt. Boyd joins forces with another wrongly accused man, an African-American, and the two begin to face their shadowed pasts while fighting against the odds of justice.
Author Notes
Daniel Lenihan is one of the world's leading underwater archaeologists. He has spent 24 years as founder & head of the elite, award-winning Submerged Cultural Resources Unit (SCRU) team of the U.S. National Park Service.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This second outing by coauthors Hackman and Lenihan (Wake of the Perdido Star) centers on Boyd Calvin, a 28-year-old shell-shocked World War I veteran. In 1929, Calvin stops by his ex-wife's home and finds her dead in a pool of blood, while her current boyfriend peruses a Bible in the kitchen. More shots ring out, and the lover is dead. Calvin is seen fleeing the scene, the only suspect. But the question of Calvin's guilt or innocence isn't really the point of the novel, which serves primarily to air the authors' opinions on race, class and the treatment of military veterans in America. When Calvin is initially apprehended, he lands in a jail cell next to George, a black man who's been unjustly charged with-yep, you guessed it-raping a white woman. The two become friends and fugitives together. Calvin shovels guts in a Chicago slaughterhouse and, with the help of George, briefly enters the world of early-20th-century black America and then dabbles in bootlegging. Once Calvin's travels exhaust the authors' apparent interest in exploring the social history of greater Chicago, Calvin turns himself in to the authorities to stand trial. Despite a few compelling scenes, the novel lacks focus and a unified vision, making for a tedious and poorly organized read. Agent, Noah Lukeman. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Absorbing but by-the-numbers courtroom melodrama, with all the moral complexities, last-minute revelations, and gavel-pounding histrionics that the genre requires. The Wake of the Perdido Star (1999), actor Hackman's debut fiction with his underwater archaeologist writing partner Lenihan, was a high-seas swashbuckler that, if not for Patrick O'Brian, could have been called the kind of novel nobody writes anymore. The team's second historical tale recalls classic American courtroom thrillers from To Kill a Mockingbird to Intruder in the Dust, but is closer to John Grisham's recent Faulkner-Lite efforts. Though set in 1929 in a nostalgically described Illinois hamlet, the story of Boyd Carter, a hapless trolley car operator on trial for the shooting murder of his wife and her loathsome lover, reads more like an extended metaphor of America's loss of moral center after the Vietnam War. Boyd is a severely shell-shocked WWI vet whose grim experiences included the mercy killing of a critically wounded officer and the use of a corpse to shield himself from capture during the Battle of Argonne. Like the 'Nam vets who could not pick up the pieces of their prewar lives, Boyd has become a permanent outsider to all but a few who think they know him better than he knows himself. The central question here--how much can we really know our neighbors?--fades away as the authors bring on the usual elements of courtroom melodrama, with mostly stock characters reciting familiar lines. Exceptions are the defiant black prisoner Boyd befriends and the wounded, wonderfully compassionate Major Hennessey, administrator of the town's Soldiers Home, whom Hackman must play if this is ever filmed. Great small-town period detail with standard-issue courtroom scenes, a few too many stock characters, and an appropriately bitter twist ending. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In their first novel, Wake of the Perdido Star (1999), actor Hackman and coauthor Lenihan combined historical and adventure fiction. In their second collaboration, they mix historical fiction with elements of the murder mystery. As in the previous book, readers must overlook the clumsy prose style (The sun had climbed to its 9:00 A.M. reserved spot in the sky ) in order to appreciate the suspenseful story. Young Boyd Calvin, living in a small town in Illinois in the late 1920s, attempts to put his life and marriage back together after his convalescence in a hospital, where he spent time for mental strain incurred as a doughboy in the Great War. But one night, Boyd's estranged wife is shot dead, and circumstances point to him as the doer of the deed. In jail he gets acquainted with a black man accused of raping a white woman. Add into the equation a woman reporter for a Chicago newspaper who is in town to investigate the murder, and the formula for an exciting yarn springs into place. The authors show a good understanding of locale and time period, and Boyd is portrayed with enough depth to make readers care about him. --Brad Hooper Copyright 2004 Booklist
Library Journal Review
In this follow-up to their debut novel, Wake of the Perdido Star, Academy Award-winning actor Hackman and underwater archaeologist Lenihan demonstrate a good feel for life in small-town Illinois on the brink of the Great Depression. World War I vet Boyd Calvin, still experiencing trauma, happens upon the murder of his estranged wife in her home. After confronting a strange man in her kitchen, Calvin unthinkingly runs away but is captured and jailed. His cellmate is a black man named George Matthews; the two become unlikely friends. When an unruly mob comes for George, the police free them from their cells, and they escape. The novel provides interesting plot twists, well-drawn characters (George is superb), and a rich, detailed evocation of rural America in the late 1920s. But the book is somewhat weakened by use of the shell-shocked hero device, which is tired at best. Still, an entertaining read; recommended for public libraries, especially in the Midwest. [Hackman grew up in Illinois as a newspaperman's son.-Ed.].-Fred Gervat, Concordia Coll. Lib. (ret.), Bronxville, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
