Jon Talton

City of Dark Corners takes place in 1933 Phoenix, Arizona. Gene Hammons was the ace homicide cop on the Phoenix police force who solved the University Park Strangler case. However, he didn’t toe the party line on a sensational murder and was kicked off the force. Now he’s a private detective, eking out a living during the Depression. Hammons’ older brother, Don, is still on the force and brings him to the scene of a ‘suspicious death’ just on the Phoenix side of the railroad tracks. The theory is that the girl committed suicide by jumping off the train. But, how could this be anything but murder when the body has been dismembered, the pieces dressed in new clothes and laid out in a ritualistic manner. Additionally, the victim’s wounds aren’t consistent with being thrown under the wheels of a train. Equally disturbing is the fact that the woman had nothing in her purse except Gene’s business card and he had no idea who she was. Is someone trying to set Gene up for murder, and if so, why?
The police are doing nothing to investigate the ‘suspicious death’ as the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce doesn’t want crime to scare away the tourists. As a result, it is up to Hammons, along with his girlfriend, photographer Victoria Vasquez, to investigate the dismembered body. As they gather evidence, several suspects emerge, including the girl’s ex-boyfriend and a crooked cop. It also appears she was not as innocent as everyone says she was. But Hammons also has the feeling he’s being followed and, at times, played. Are Gene and Victoria putting their lives in danger to get at the truth?

Talton includes flashbacks to Gene’s tracking and capture of the University Park Strangler which provides insights into his investigative methods.

As I mentioned earlier, City of Dark Corners definitely has that 1930s/1940s pulp feel to it. As a matter of fact, the author includes a Note on Language, stating that he is using the vernacular of the era, which include racial epithets and references to ethnicity and gender that would be considered highly offensive today.

But Talton has created an empathetic character in Gene Hammons, one who readers will like and root for. There is some violence and a lot of action, none of which is gratuitous. Talton shines in weaving together of the mystery with The Great War, the Depression, hoboes and Hoovervilles, the migration west, Prohibition and organized crime. But these were the signs of those times. In addition, some well known dignitaries and crime bosses of the time are characters in the book, all lending atmosphere to the story.

I don’t know if Gene Hammons and crew are the beginnings of a new series, but I’d be happy if they are. Talton is a breath of fresh air in an overly crowded American mystery scene.… (más)

You know the movie that plays in your head while you read? This is a book you’ll be watching in black & white. Dark city streets, Packards driven by men in fedoras & plenty of cigarette smoke….all of this transports you to 1930’s Phoenix. It’s like many American towns…..reeling from the Great Depression & not even able to (legally) drown its sorrows due to Prohibition.

It’s in this setting we meet brothers Gene & Don Hammons. Both are veterans of the Great War who returned & joined the Phoenix Police Department. But any similarities end there. To get a sense of their relationship dynamic, think Cain & Abel or maybe Noel & Liam.

Gene rose quickly through the ranks & was a well respected detective before being forced out after he stood up for a woman framed for murder. His innate sense of right vs wrong meant he couldn’t go along to get along in a department riddled with corruption. So now he ekes out a living as a P.I. His days are spent looking for missing persons & catching up with girlfriend Victoria Vasquez, a news photographer.

Don resented Gene’s success & skills as a detective. Fortunately, he’s never been burdened by ethics & welcomes the little perks that come with being on the job. He never misses an opportunity to sneer at Gene’s moral code. So it’s more than a bit surprising when he reaches out to help his little brother.

It all begins with a body. A pretty young blond is found by the train tracks & there are a couple of things immediately wrong with this picture. First, she’s in pieces…literally. Second, the only thing in her handbag is Gene’s business card. Fortunately, Don was at the scene & the card quickly makes its way back to Gene who’s stumped. Was the woman planning to hire him? Or was he being set up to take the fall?

Identifying the woman proves a challenge. Local politicians worried about bad PR are keen for the cops to move on & with no new leads, the case is quietly shelved. But Gene can’t let it go. He begins to dig into the mysterious young woman’s past, a decision that puts him & Victoria in danger.

Settle in for a dark & twisty tale that is richly evocative of the era. It’s a time of rampant poverty, Depression camps, dirty politicians & corrupt cops. The mob is spreading west like a fungus & no one is immune. There’s a definite noir vibe to the narrative but the style of prose & Gene’s character prevent it from sliding into pulp territory.

Yes, he’s a PI in the 1930’s but that’s where any similarity to his hardboiled counterparts ends (although he may argue that Victoria qualifies as a femme fatale…). Instead of a swaggering, tough talking collector of dames (that would be Don), Gene is a quiet man haunted by what he experienced during the war. Today he’s be diagnosed with PTSD but the best they had then was shell-shock, a mildly derogatory term implying weakness. As a consequence, he is startled by loud noises & frequently takes little mental side trips down memory lane. As he recalls these vignettes from his past, we get a better understanding of his relationship with Don & how they grew so far apart. He’s a deep thinker with a spirituality he clings to as his last hope for redemption.

In terms of pace & direction, it reminded me of The Searcher by Tana French. It’s a literary PI story that is more about the people than the crime. It moves along at a steady speed that allows you to enjoy the descriptive prose & get to know the characters. Tension builds slowly until you reach a place where you’re afraid to turn the page, sure there’s going to be an “oh crap” moment right around the corner. That continues to the last few pages when all pieces finally slide into place.

It’s a dark, immersive read with a sympathetic MC you’ll quietly root for. BTW, thumbs up to those responsible for the beautiful cover art.… (más)

Jon Talton is the author of 13 novels and one work of history.

His work has been widely praised by the critics. The Washington Post BookWorld said Concrete Desert is “more intelligent and rewarding than most contemporary mysteries.” In a starred review, Booklist called it “a stunning debut.” The Chicago Tribune lauded Camelback Falls for its “twisty and crafty” plot. For Dry Heat, Publishers Weekly wrote, “Taut prose helps tighten the screws, and the winning, sensitive portrayal of the Mapstones ¬– both of them a relief after too many hard-nosed PIs who are all gristle and no brain – lends credibility to the noirish narrative." Best-selling author Don Winslow called Talton one of America's "extremely talented but under-recognized" authors.

Jon is also a veteran journalist. He is the economics columnist for the Seattle Times and is editor and publisher of the blog Rogue Columnist.

For more than 25 years Jon has covered business and finance, specializing in urban economies, energy, real estate and economics and public policy. Jon has been a columnist for the Arizona Republic, Charlotte Observer and Rocky Mountain News, and his columns have appeared in newspapers throughout North America on the New York Times News Service and other news services. Jon has been a regular guest on CNBC.

Jon served as business editor for several newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News, Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Enquirer and Charlotte Observer. At Dayton, he was part of a team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service, for the nation’s first computer-assisted report on worker safety. In Charlotte, the business section was honored as one of the nation’s best by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Among the stories he has covered are the landmark Texaco-Pennzoil trial; the collapse of energy prices in the 1980s; the troubles of General Motors and the American auto industry; the big bank mergers of the ‘90s, and America’s downtown renaissance. He was a Knight Western Fellow in Journalism at the University of Southern California and a community fellow at the Morrison Institute at Arizona State University.

Before journalism, he worked for four years as an ambulance medic in the inner city of Phoenix. He also was an instructor in theater at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.… (más)

City of Dark Corners is an absolute gold mine of Phoenix history, but that's not the only reason to read it. (Although I will say that anyone who thinks that it's too hot for anything to happen here needs to think again.) Readers will also get a good feeling for life during the Depression. For one thing, it never occurred to me that there would be a lot of missing persons during this time, and I felt about as smart as a box of rocks when Talton explained this to me.

The mystery is a good one, too, which is something that I always expect from Jon Talton, and it has a noir feel that some readers are going to love. If you're not a noir fan, don't roll your eyes and move along. I said a noir "feel"-- a bit like using margarine instead of butter.

As with any mystery worth its salt, there have to be characters that keep my interest, and City of Dark Corners has them. Besides the City of Phoenix, which is a character in and of itself, there is Gene Hammons, the World War I veteran, a former police detective who was Amelia Earhart's bodyguard when she was in town, and now private eye who sings in a church choir to help keep him sane. His love interest, Victoria Vasquez, is a strong, interesting character, too. She's a photographer who often takes crime scene photos for the police department, but she's working toward a career in photojournalism like Margaret Bourke-White's.

If you're in the mood for a historical mystery that's a bit gritty, a puzzler to solve, and has two strong characters, City of Dark Corners may be just the thing for you. I'm hoping that it's the start of a brand-new series. If you don't go in for historicals, try Talton's David Mapstone mysteries. They are first-rate.

(Review copy courtesy of the publisher and Net Galley)… (más)