The TV Way: a review

There's very little of the aren't-I-clever?, flashy-Chandler, "tarantula on angel food cake" observations. book/daddy forgave Mr. Kelly the Cicero references (Kelly reads the Latin classics). And although Mr. Harvey's tour of Chicago's beery netherworld and beery public world seems a little gimmicky and boosterish at times (Go Cubs! You losers!), there was enough of an undertow of regret and weariness and cold winter blues that made it all rather appealing.

The complexity of the case also broke through the more obvious echoes or, if you prefer, homages. Kelly's former police partner is murdered -- shades of the opening of The Maltese Falcon. He wanted Kelly to look into an old rape case of theirs, believing that the guilty party was actually a serial killer who, although convicted and put in the pen, seems to be still at large -- leading Kelly ultimately to interview said convict in the pen about possible sidekicks or accessories (shades of Silence of the Lambs). Cover-ups, hired Mafia hits, a tough TV newswoman, it all gets thrown in to keep things interesting (following the famous Chandler dictate to authors that, when things get slow, just have somebody come through the door with a gat in his hand).

But then the story turned decidedly Spenser-ish, and book/daddy found himself having to forgive more and more as the novel didn't really break through formulas as implausibly pile on more of them. Kelly, for instance, used to be a boxer (a boxer who reads Cicero .... hmm). And he got driven out of the force on what were rather trumped up suspicions. And he gets some agreeable face-time with Chicago's reigning, if elderly don. (Lots of private eyes are on a friendly basis with Mafia capos). Then there's the twist that has one woman taking over another's identity, and Kelly has to dig up old high school photos to prove it. You don't know how many people, having seen Body Heat, have murdered old classmates but neglect to burn all their yearbooks or family photos.

And so on.

But what finally froze book/daddy's gripy little heart was his growing awareness that Every Close Friend of the Detective Was Implicated or Threatened Somehow in the Evil Conspiracy.

It's a grand, tired-old-crap, Golden Age TV device. It keeps up the detective's sense of loss and betrayal and his (heart-tugging) emotional ties to what is turning into a small slaughter of Chicago citizenry who otherwise might just be strangers and therefore why would he bother with them? A semi-spoiler alert: Just as you always knew an old Army buddy who showed up on Mannix would wind up betraying their friendship and a sweet babe who threw herself at Mannix would always wind up dead, in The Chicago Way, Kelly, over the years, has cultivated a remarkable number of friends who are murderous cads, who are conspiring to kill him or cover-up an old crime or who tragically take a bullet for the lovable lug because He's a Maverick Who Won't Be Chased Off a Case.

First-time novels tend to be derivative; there's no shame in stealing from the greats. But given the hosannahs The Chicago Way was receiving, given Mr. Harvey's expertise in the TV writing game and given how smart he seemed to be, initially, in freshening up genre formulas, it was disappointing, if not more than a little irritating, how by the end, Cubs-like, the book just kept choking.