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Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake) | MYSTERY ATK | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Tampa, Florida, 1955: a city pulsing with Sicilian and Cuban gangsters, smoky clubs, cigar factories, light, voices, and rum. The bludgeoning death of mob boss Charlie Wall sends shock waves rippling through the communities, setting cops and reporters and associates, known and unknown, scrambling to discover the truth. The truth is that there are many more surprises to come. As the trail winds through neighborhoods, rich and poor, enmeshing the corrupt and innocent alike, all the way down to the streets of pre-revolutionary Havana, an extraordinary story of revenge, honor, and greed begins to emerge. But that is only the beginning. For Charlie Wall had his secrets, and he guarded them well. And those secrets will have repercussions.
Author Notes
Ace Atkins was a correspondent for The St. Petersburg Times and a crime reporter for The Tampa Tribune. He received a Pulitzer Prize nomination for a feature series based on his investigation into a forgotten murder of the 1950s. The story became the core of his novel White Shadow. He is the author of approximately 20 books including The Ranger, The Lost Ones, and Lullaby.
In 2011, he was selected by the Robert B. Parker estate to continue the adventures of Boston's private eye, Spenser. His books include Robert B. Parker's Wonderland, Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot, and Robert B. Parker's Kickback.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
One of the major achievements of Atkins's fictional account of the murder of former mob boss Charlie Wall, the White Shadow of the title, is his mesmerizing recreation of the steamy, dangerous, pulsating city of Tampa, Fla., circa 1955. Surprisingly, Dufris, a veteran of more than 250 audiobooks, selects a straightforward, unaccented and bland approach to the atmosphere-rich novel. The book's protagonist and narrator, reporter L.B. Turner, referred to as a "Virginian," has a New England burr rather than an Old South slur. When it comes to Mafia and Cuban gangsters, Dufris rises to the occasion with an assortment of properly gruff and/or Latin accents. The audio package improves on the novel with a bonus disk, where Atkins eloquently outlines the events that triggered his interest in a nearly 50-year-old murder and offers anecdotes about his research. Just as fascinating are his interviews with former newsmen Bob Turner and Leland Hawes and retired detective Ellis Clifton, men whose voices and memories, presumably recorded during the last few years, seem as vital as they were back in the day. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, June 3). (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Atkins, who wrote an award-winning series of Tampa Tribune articles on real-life gangster Charlie Wall, uses the Mob boss' 1955 murder as a launching point for an atmospheric tale of turf war between Sicilian and Cuban gangsters in Tampa's Latin Quarter. The murder of the aging, semiretired Wall begins the story, which follows the efforts of a cynical reporter and a determined cop to peel away a multileveled cover-up and expose the truth. Atkins layers on the plotlines and the historical detail--scenes in Tampa's legendary cigar factories, even a road trip to Havana--and, despite a subplot or two too many, it all holds together just fine. The real appeal here, though, is the Latin Quarter itself--white suits, cafe con leche, bebop in sultry bars, and that heady aroma of cigar smoke mixed with corruption. James Ellroy's Black Dahlia hits some of the same notes on the opposite coast, but Atkins, also author of the Nick Travers mystery series, plays his own tune, and it puts Tampa on the crime-fiction map. --Bill Ott Copyright 2006 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Starred Review. It's 1955, and the Ybor City area of Tampa is a melting pot of Cuban and Sicilian immigrants liberally laced with gangsters vying for control of the city's gambling, prostitution, drug, and liquor concessions. When vice don Charlie Wall, affectionately known as The White Shadow, is murdered gangland style in his home, all of Tampa takes notice. Atkins (Dirty South) has penned a compelling fictionalized history of the affair told from a variety of perspectives--those of the prime suspects, the investigating police detective, an investigative reporter for the TampaTimes, and an elusive Cuban girl who was a prime mover in the case. In a Tampa Confidential style, Atkins's latest cleaves close to the truth as revealed by police reports, court documents, newspaper articles, and interviews with those involved. Not your average whodunit, White Shadow is an intriguing exposé of a crime-ridden city in the not-too-distant past. Recommended. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 1/06.]-- Thomas Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Kirkus Review
A wild ride back to south Florida in the mid-1950s, when reporters were boozy, women were floozies, cops were for sale and stone killers managed somehow to be colorful. On Monday, April 15, 1955, person or persons unknown severely punished Charlie Wall, king of the bootleggers in his time, with a baseball bat and then slit his throat--a homicide never solved. This is the pivotal, real-life episode Atkins uses to spin his tale of murder, betrayal and revenge in tempestuous Tampa, a city once dubbed "Little Chicago." Mob hits then were as integral to the scene as senior-citizen ex-pats are now. So who rubbed the old man out? Was it Santo Trafficante, operations boss of that busy crime triangulation--Sicily to Tampa to Havana--who might have arranged the deed simply because he could? Or how about Johnny Rivera, a hood's hood, sullen, reptilian, unburdened by anything resembling a conscience. Had he become convinced that the old man had grown loose-lipped with age? Detective Ed Dodge, the anomalous cop without a price tag, likes Johnny for it. But then he likes Johnny for just about anything that is vicious, cold-blooded and fatal. On the periphery as the drama unfolds, a kind of Greek chorus, are the reporters: 26-year old J.B. Turner, serving Atkins as alter ego and narrator; and smart, beautiful, endlessly enigmatic Eleanor Charles, chief among them--sniffing at the action, ever alert for byline material, seemingly safe behind the shield of their notebooks. Until suddenly they aren't. Atkins (Dirty South, 2004, etc.) mutes his Nick Travers series, benching the blues-loving ex-footballer, for something much more ambitious. This is a big-time crime novel crammed with violence, sex and some pretty good writing makes it hard to put down. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The real-life murder of mob boss Charlie Wall in 1955 is the impetus for this classic Florida noir. Pulitzer Prize-nominated Atkins, author of the Nick Travers series, lives in Oxford, MS. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
