Calumet
City
Non-series
Charlie Newton
Touchstone (Trade Paperback)
ISBN-10: 1-4165-3322-2 (1416533222)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-3322-1 (9781416233221)
Publication Date: March 2008
List Price: $14.00
Synopsis
(from
the publisher): Meet Patti Black, the most decorated cop in Chicago.
On her ghetto beat, Patti Black redefines the word badass. But her
steel-plated exterior -- solitary, stoic, loveless -- belies the
wrenching legacy of her orphan childhood. Haunted by the horrifying
abuse she suffered at the hands of her foster parents, Patti Black
sublimates past torments into a meticulously maintained tough-gal
persona.
When a series of unrelated cases -- a drug bust gone bad, a mayoral
assassination attempt, the murder of a state attorney, the exhumation
of a long-concealed body from a tenement basement wall -- all point in
Patti Black's direction, she finds herself facing the dark truth: You
can't hide from your history, no matter how far into the fog you run.
For Patti Black, that history didn't die in the tenement wall; it's
alive -- and riding her down.
Review:
Charlie Newton's debut novel, Calumet
City, is a dark, gritty, and
suspenseful tale of the cops, and one in particular, that patrol the
gangland streets of Chicago.
Patti Black escaped from an appalling, terrifying life in a foster home
in Calumet City, a suburb south of Chicago. She faced her demons,
buried them, and escaped. She was still a teen-ager. With a lot of help
she brought herself up out of the gutter and became a Chicago cop.
Though she remained an embittered adult, she showed integrity, honesty
and fairness when it was due. But she had a deep, dreadful secret
concerning her life in Calumet City, one she thought she would never
reveal to any one. On her application to the police academy she
purposely omitted or simply lied about certain areas of her life. This
seemed to go unnoticed. Now it appears as if her past is going to haunt
her. When some factions of the city want a casino in Chicago, and
others are determined to fight it, an attempt is made on the
mayor’s life. Then a huge drug bust fails, killing one and
injuring two. The state attorney is found murdered. And a
woman’s body, identified as the foster mother of Patti, is
found buried in a wall of an old building. Coincidences? Patti
doesn’t think so.
Calumet City
is a dark and frequently violent tale of a part of Chicago that the
board of tourism doesn't promote. The story, which at times
seems more than a little derivative, moves along at a rapid pace due
partly to Newton's crisp style of writing but due primarily to the
fully developed character of Patti Black. As an interesting side note,
Patti Black is based on a real Chicago police officer with whom the
author spent time while developing the story for this book. His
research pays off with this terrific thriller.
Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Calumet City and to Simon & Schuster for providing an ARC of the book for this review.
Review Copyright © 2008 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Omnimystery keywords for Calumet City ...
Location(s) referenced: Chicago.