It was author Ed McBain who introduced to the mystery sub-genre of police procedurals, and if I didn’t read all of his more than 50 novels about the 87th Precinct cops, I came pretty close. He created an entire fictional world in these novels, based approximately on metropolitan New York City. McBain died at 78 in 2005, with a writing legacy stretching back to 1956.
Since
McBain’s death, I’ve read a few police procedurals, but little really grabbed
my interest like McBain’s stories. That is, until I read Tyler Dilts’ A
Cold and Broken Halellujah.
The
novel is the third of the Long Beach Homicide stories written by Dilts, who teaches
creative writing at California State University in Long Beach. The first two in
the series were The
King of Infinite Space (2010) and The
Pain Scale (2012).
I’m
hooked. And it wasn’t because the title comes from the Leonard Cohen song, or the
completely unexpected mention of poet Luci
Shaw by the main character.
No,
it was because it’s a terrific story.
Long
Beach police detective Danny Beckett and his partner Jennifer Tanaka are called
to investigate what at first looks like a nauseatingly familiar street crime –
a homeless man burned to death by three young thugs, one of those senseless
acts that we seem to read more and more about in the newspaper.
As
Beckett and Tanaka investigate what appears to be a slam-dunk case, they
gradually discover that the crime isn’t what it appeared to be, and instead
becomes something uglier and more sinister.
Tyler Dilts |
The
story focuses on Beckett, whose usual companions of vodka and vicodin help dull
the pain in his hand and arm (from the second novel in the series) as much as
they dull the ache of the loss of his wife in an automobile accident years
before. The fact that she burned to death makes this case of a burned homeless
man more real, and more personal.
What
highlights the story is how Dilts turns the city of Long Beach into almost a
character in and of itself. The reader walks and drives the streets and
neighborhoods with Beckett and Tanaka. And it’s done just right, so that the
setting doesn’t overpower the story but instead is woven tightly into the
story.
So,
yes, I’m hooked. Now I have to read the first two. And I hope more to come.
Photograph: City of Long Beach at night.
2 comments:
I agree completely! I am only a little familiar with Long Beach, but the way it's part of the stories is just right.
Another mystery series to read! Hooray. Just ordered all three.
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