A retired homicide detective assists a friend whose daughter is threatened by a violent stalker in Manos’ thriller.

Larry Klinger, retired from the Chicago Police Department for six years and anguished over the death of his 6-year-old son, Mattie, spends his time aimlessly riding the subway, emotionally adrift. Realizing his pain has only grown deeper as decades pass, he seeks solace in group therapy and becomes friends with a handful of men, all of whom have suffered the trauma of losing a child. The author affectingly portrays the bond Klinger forms with his brothers in commiseration: “And it was less that he felt like he knew the personalities, hopes, or fears of the men beyond what he was learning each week, he explained, than a sense that they all knew something about themselves and one another that they all desperately wished they did not know.” Dan McVie, one of them, frets anxiously over the safety of his daughter, Andrea—the boyfriend she recently dumped, Marco Bala, is an angry man with violent tendencies, and he stubbornly stalks her. Marco becomes increasingly threatening, and, after receiving an order of protection demanding he steer clear of Andrea, he assaults her and menaces McVie’s wife, Sharon. Out of desperation, McVie wonders aloud if he should hire a hit man to kill Marco or simply do the job himself. Klinger is tortured by the impossibility of Andrea’s predicament—he knows that the police cannot arrest Marco and that Marco will never be satisfied until Andrea is dead; he confesses to his wife, Dora, “I don’t have any doubts about where this is headed, though.”

The narrative is a forlornly painful one—all of the principal characters are tormented by unspeakable loss, and their personal traumas are portrayed with extraordinary insight. The author’s prose is generally plain and foursquare—the power of Klinger’s melancholy is only increased by the spare simplicity of his mode of expression. Still, Manos is more than capable of poetic incisiveness—he describes Marco’s obsession with Andrea memorably: “But as subsequent days passed, a growing matrix of suspicions about Andrea’s social life preyed on Marco’s mind like a cracked tooth.” Despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, Marco insists they are “soulmates,” though Klinger astutely understands that Marco is less obsessed with possessing Andrea than he is with courting conflict. Klinger is a richly complex character—still reeling from the death of his young son, he can’t bear the thought of McVie losing another of his children and is haunted by the fact that the tragedy is all but a forgone conclusion. “So, basically, I want to prevent this guy from losing another daughter in a way that looks too damned inevitable for my taste.” The author wraps a psychologically astute tale of emotional conflict in a crime drama, the latter just as intelligently conceived as the former. This is a remarkable novel—poignant and provocative.

A stunningly bold novel composed with great authorial confidence.

In Manos’ crime drama, Michael Pollitz must decide whether to protect the mobster who has protected him.

When Mike, a college student in 1972 Illinois, is arrested on drug charges, his father insists he use a public defender. His childhood friend’s father, Dom Calabria, head of the Outfit in Chicago, wants to help Mike by providing a first-rate lawyer, but Mike goes with his father’s wishes. The outcome is a plea bargain for a short stay in Astoria Adult Correctional Facility—but after he’s brutally beaten and raped by three inmates, Mike spends most of his sentence in the infirmary. He doesn’t give up his assailants’ names but threatens their lives right before he’s set to be released. When Mike is picked up by the head of the mob, people notice. Flash forward to 1994, when Detective Larry Klinger begins investigating the murders of two former Astoria inmates who were violently killed shortly after being released. An informant—the third man who beat Mike—tells Klinger that the murders were committed by Calabria, the kingpin whom Klinger would like to see taken down. Klinger investigates, coming in contact with Mike, and the two form a friendship. When Klinger realizes that Mike will never give up Calabria, he begins to wonder whether it’s even worth investigating the murders of such evil men. Manos is extremely deft at allowing the characters to reveal the story and what motivates them. Klinger captures this particularly well; he ponders his role in the reality of crime and punishment, and Manos allows him to grow in the process: “Interviewing scumbags has to be the most tedious damn thing in the world, Klinger thought, as Bobby Andrews jumped back and forth over the same explanations, tripping over one lie after another.” The characters are rich in their speech, experiences and motivations, which the measured, purposeful writing only enhances.

A character-driven crime novel ruled by complex men facing the past.