Michael Cassidy is a New York City detective who does things his way, which really pisses off a lot of people–like the Mob, the FBI, revolutionaries, counterrevolutionaries, Upper East Side bluebloods, and, oh, yes, his Department superiors. But what the hell, right? He’s very good at solving murders, and in 1959, that means there’s plenty of work to do. More important, it’s rumored he “has juice” or a “rabbi,” which is to say, friends in high places, not least his mobster godfather. (No, not that kind of godfather. A real one.)

Nevertheless, Michael’s wiseass sense of humor pushes the wrong buttons. For instance, when the deputy chief of police demands to know whether the detective harbors “lefty” sympathies, as in, who he voted for in 1956, Michael replies, “Mickey Mantle. He had a good season. Batted three-oh-four, had thirty-nine home runs. I figured it was time for him to move up.” Naturally, that witticism doesn’t sit well.

But what’s bad (or shall we say, “inadvisable”) for Michael is great fun for the reader. The reason Deputy Chief Clarkson wants to know his politics is because Fidel Castro, having just chased Fulgencia Batista out of Cuba, is paying an ambassadorial visit to New York. As it happens, Michael has been to Havana on police business, where, by the way, he sprang his former lover, Dylan McCue, from prison the day before her scheduled execution.

Since many disaffected Cubans and their unsavory American allies (like Meyer Lansky, the mobster) would be happy to assassinate Castro, security will be tight. But will it be tight enough? And is there a Cuban connection to a murder Michael’s investigating on the Upper East Side?

Night Work is the sequel to Night Life and offers many of the same pleasures, though on a broader stage. Taylor writes about power as corrupting, and the Cuban revolution offers plenty of grist. You see it in the graft and brutalities of the Batista regime, which runs the country like a plantation, and in the revolutionaries who execute hundreds in the name of democracy, believing in slogans rather than decency.

But New York is still the novel’s core. The author depicts both the seedy corners where bagmen do their dirty work, hoping the big man will reward them, and the fifteenth-story apartments on the Upper East Side with river views, where bigoted, self-important snobs assume that messy problems are for lesser folk. I also enjoy how Taylor portrays Mephistopheles himself, J. Edgar Hoover, making a return cameo from Night Life.

The New York idiom too, is always a treat, as with, “There’s a place over on Lex makes great coffee,” or “what I tell all of them come ask about my customers.” That’s writing with an observant ear.

At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll lodge the same complaints against this novel as I did its ancestor. Michael’s a male pheromone factory, and no female seems immune. He doesn’t even have to try, though in this book, one beauty actually ditches him for Paul Newman, if that says anything.

Michael does have advanced chemistry going with Dylan, and I believe that relationship, though I’m less sure about the way she keeps showing up at unexpected moments. It serves the story, which is extremely well plotted, the murder mystery in particular, but, as with some of the derring-do, I have my doubts.

That said, Night Work is enormously entertaining. Even better, the characters all believe in something, which gives depth to what, in other hands, might be merely a colorful, suspenseful novel. ( )

Great thriller style story with engaging retro-noir feeling. The main character was more fully developed, and therefore less irritating, than the usual hard-bitten ultra-masculine protagonist used by this genre. I will likely read more of this series. ( )

old style noir ( )

Fast paced, atmospheric noir set in 1954 NYC. There's lots of name dropping done to recreate the historical aspects of the story. That may be a cheap way of setting scenes. The protagonist, Micheal Cassiddy smokes and drinks and has the cushiest job of being a detective that I can imagine. Not a great book but an enjoyable read. ( )

Sometimes in between the P&R series, the post-apocalyptic dystopias, and the Steam-Punk meta-mash-ups, a straight up thriller slips through. If I am lucky, a straight up-thriller with a touch of noir will show up. If I am really lucky a novel like Night Life by David C. Taylor finds its way into my happy hands. This is one of those rare books that is the very epitome of big and brawling, is soaked to the bone with hard-boiled attitude, yet is as smart as a whip at the same time.

Night Life is Michael Cassidy’s story, from beginning to end. A detective for the NYPD, he is an enigmatic jazz-loving existential loner who seems wed to the time, 1953. Just to give you an example, he throws a vice cop out a three-story window for roughing up a hooker in the first few pages. The real story takes off a bit later, when Cassidy and his partner Orso chase down a robbery suspect. In the process of cuffing the perp they bounce him like a pinball off of the car of an annoyed Roy Cohn, who was the hired gun and hatchet man for Senator Joe McCarthy. After that he finds some clues that lead him to a convoluted case of murder and blackmail involving the CIA and FBI. At the same time, a vengeful Cohn decides to make Mike’s life hell by denouncing his father and rail-roading him all the way back to Russia.

Needless to say, as an excellent noir, there are plenty of twists and turns in the plot, and, of course, some great dames. The best is a semi-bohemian welder named Dylan, who is as well-crafted as Michael, and is also to die for. The prose is sharp, a bit flashy, but tonally perfect. Mr. Taylor hit all the right atmospheric touches, and the background and locals seem just right, without drawing too much attention to themselves.

Michael takes a fair amount of beatings of course, and is double-crossed and stabbed in the back. He drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney and even his connections have connections, but it all goes down like a bourbon on the rocks. The sideline characters are all good, and the sub-plots blend into the main storyline with a smoothness that seems effortless, but is really a display of bravura storytelling by Mr. Taylor. By the time the end-game starts the whole story is half-tragic, and half Kafka-esque farce. It’s a tricky balance, but the author pulls it off, giving us a slap-bang ending where there are no real winners or losers, but only survivors. Even they are bloody, but unbowed. A knock-out.

Review by: Mark Palm
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