City of Dark Corners

March 1, 2021
Talton continues his project of embroidering Arizona's criminal history by digging into the depths of 1933. "Crime was down in the Great Depression," private eye Gene Hammons keeps hearing. But not for Gene, who was drummed out of the Phoenix Police Department by his dogged attempts to link the murders for which Winnie Ruth Judd was convicted to an accomplice who went free. Shortly after his brother, Don, a charming drug addict who's still on the force, calls on him for help with a dismembered female corpse found at the side of the railroad tracks, Gene gets a telegram from mining magnate Ezra Thayer offering him a retainer to find his 19-year-old daughter Carrie, who's gone missing from Arizona State Teachers College. Could the body be that of Carrie Thayer? No, it couldn't, because septuagenarian Thayer, who maintains that he never sent such a telegram, doesn't have a teenage daughter. Though Gene doesn't know who the victim is or why he got the phony job offer, he's certain the murder is connected to two similar and very recent dismemberings and almost equally certain that the crimes are connected to both up-and-coming mobster Gus Greenbaum and at least one of Gene's old colleagues, who emit such a powerful stench of corruption that it's hard to single out the perp. As if the throat-slittings that follow and Gene's recollections of the University Park Strangler four years earlier don't darken the sunny landscape enough, Gene also realizes that the late Carrie Thayer, whoever she was, was no innocent. Authentic Depression-era atmosphere with maybe a few too many murders and real-life walk-ons.

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March 29, 2021
Gene Hammons, the narrator of this enjoyable mystery set in 1933 Phoenix, Ariz., from Talton (the David Mapstone series), was once a well-respected homicide detective, but he now scrounges a living as a PI after an unwillingness to compromise principles led to his fall from grace. Hammons’s troubled older brother, a police detective, drives him to a crime scene, where the neatly dismembered body of a young woman dressed in pink has been found alongside the railroad tracks; inside her purse is the younger Hammons’s business card. After someone tries to lead Hammons astray with a fake job offer, it becomes apparent he’s being set up to be framed for the murder of the woman in pink. Hunting for a killer that neither Phoenix’s well-connected citizens nor the city’s burgeoning criminal element want found is Hammons’s only option. References to movie actors and other celebrities of the day, as well as speakeasies and bootleggers, lend atmosphere to this well-crafted tale involving desperate people who could easily disappear. Hopefully, Hammons, a man of too much integrity for his own good, will be back soon.

Starred review from May 1, 2021

Gene Hammons, a veteran of the Great War and former Phoenix homicide detective, now makes a living looking for missing people. People disappear all the time in the book's 1933 Arizona; the Great Depression has hit Phoenix hard. When a woman's body is found near the railroad tracks, cut into four pieces. Gene's brother Don, a police detective, asks him to consult on the case. Although the railroad bull says she fell from a train, Gene thinks the body was arranged. Don finds his brother's business card in the dead woman's purse and returns it to him; meanwhile, Gene won't drop the case, although the Chamber of Commerce calls it an accidental death. He and his police photographer girlfriend, Victoria Vasquez, are followed, and cover-up murders occur. Gene knows that he's being set up--or that somebody wants to kill anyone who might supply a clue to the dead woman's activities. It's a complex case, enmeshing some of the most prominent real-life Phoenix figures, including a young Barry Goldwater. VERDICT This gritty stand-alone deals with Phoenix's rough-and-tumble past and its questionable police force in the 1930s. Talton excels at creating the ambiance of historic Phoenix. Suggest for fans of realistic historical mysteries or Phoenix Noir.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

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Starred review from May 15, 2021
Living in Arizona during the Depression, WWI veteran and former police detective turned private investigator Gene Hammons finds himself on the wrong end of a heinous murder case. A young woman is found dismembered next to railroad tracks with Gene's business card in her purse. The police department rules it a suspicious death, but Gene is certain it's much more than that. As he searches for the victim's identity, Gene begins to unravel her secrets, leading to confrontations with some of Phoenix's most prominent movers and shakers, both power brokers and criminals. Talton, author of the long-running David Mapstone series (The Bomb Shelter, 2018), set in contemporary Phoenix, shows his range with his first venture into historical mystery. (At the outset, Talton provides a considerate explanation of and warning about his decision to use language from the era.) Gene is an amiable and savvy protagonist, and Talton shines in weaving together the mystery elements of the plots with historical events from the Prohibition period. Fast-paced, gritty, and exciting, this one will have fans of both Depression-era and southwestern-set crime fiction begging for more!

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