GANGLAND

A sticky yarn of paranoia and semiorganized crime, ready for the multiplex.

The real-life burglary of Chicago mob boss Tony Accardo’s suburban home in 1978 provides a marvelously hooky backdrop for Hogan’s lowdown tale, which fictionalizes the event and the subsequent assassinations of parties directly and tangentially involved with the incident. “Nicky Pins” Passero, a bowling alley proprietor and midlevel member of Accardo’s outfit, is our point-of-view character and an ideal guide through the horrific events set in motion by the resentful thief and the increasingly paranoid Accardo. Nicky, a closeted gay family man adrift after separating from his wife, is intelligent, sensitive, and discreet, operating under the radar as an effective survival strategy. Ironically, his superb people skills win him the confidence of Accardo, which first feels like an honor but quickly devolves into a bloody nightmare as the crime lord tasks him with catching the thieves who invaded his home. Further complicating matters is Nicky’s status as an FBI informant dominated and abused by his handler, who entrapped Nicky via a humiliating staged seduction scenario. Hogan expertly tightens the screws as Nicky desperately scrambles to please his superiors, underlings, handlers, and estranged family as the body count mounts in increasingly gruesome fashion. Nicky is a fascinating character, sympathetic yet complicated, an aware and articulate person who has drifted into hell incrementally, trying in his way to do the right thing when he can. The satisfying thriller structure, vivid dialogue and characterizations, and tragicomic tone are reminiscent of the Coen brothers’ best film work, and the historical underpinning provides the pleasures of a first-rate true-crime tale.

Colorful, engaging, and bloody; a richly satisfying crime story and character study.