A Quiet Vendetta

November 14, 2011
The kidnapping of 19-year-old Catherine Ducane, daughter of Louisiana governor Charles Ducane, and the brutal murder of her driver set the stage for this absorbing crime novel from Ellory (A Simple Act of Violence) covering more than 50 years of mob violence and American history. When the FBI agrees to Ernesto Perez’s request to bring Ray Hartmann of the New York district attorney’s office to New Orleans, Perez turns himself in. Perez promises to reveal Catherine’s whereabouts, but first he must tell his life story as a Mafia hit man to Hartmann. Perez recounts a journey that includes his involvement in at least 19 murders and the mob’s links to such figures as the Kennedys, Richard Nixon, and Marilyn Monroe. Perez’s goal remains a mystery, as does his selection of Hartmann as his audience, up to the end of this brilliantly conceived tale of greed, politics, family loyalties, and vengeance. Only the occasional passage of florid prose spoils the performance. Agent: Euan Thorneycroft.

January 1, 2012
The hits keep coming in multiple-murder-master Ellory's (The Anniversary Man, 2010, etc.) latest--literally. It's not so easy in the Big Easy, not in summer, when "the storm drains backed up in the last week of July, and...spilled God-only-knew-what out into the gutters." One of the things they cough up is bodies. As Ellory's tale opens, medical examiner Jim Emerson and a cop with the poetic name of Verlaine are puzzling out one brutal specimen, an investigation instantly complicated by the kidnapping of the governor's daughter. It being Louisiana, the governor is, of course, hopelessly corrupt. Even so, justice is justice, and Ellory conjures up a worthy squad of cops to chase down the bad guy. This being an Ellory tale, though, it's the bad guy who does the chasing--or at least the talking, for more than anything else the kidnapper seems to want only a forum to get a few things off his mind about a decidedly checkered past. He talks--"I was Ernesto Cabrera Perez, a man capable of killing other men, a gifted man, a dangerous man"--and he talks, though the occasionally dorm-room-philosophical gab is pleasingly punctuated by lots of carnage. One wonders whether Ellory has been keeping company with mob assassins himself, to judge by some of the details he presents; suffice it to say that an attentive student could carve out an independent-study curriculum in dealing death from Perez's leisurely account of his adventures, so elegantly delivered that one might imagine the lines having been written for, say, Javier Bardem ("I am here of my own volition, and I assure you I am quite unarmed"). The tale-spinning goes on a little long, and the tale itself untightens in the telling, but Ellory delivers a neat conclusion that's not exactly instant karma, but close enough. It even approaches happy, if you don't mind your happiness--and a lesson in family values--soaked in blood and brains. A satisfying effort in a franchise devoted to double-digit mayhem.

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Starred review from January 1, 2012
Pre-Katrina New Orleans, with all its passion and decadence intact, provides an ideal backdrop for the intimate revelations of Ernesto Perez, a career hit man. (This book was originally released in the UK in August 2005, literally days before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.) In what may well be the best Mafia novel since The Godfather, Ellory explores the dark intimacies of people bound by a complex relationship with violence, ranging from the mean streets to the highest strata of society. The story is built around a dialogue between Perez and Special Investigator Ray Hartmann, with Hartmann attempting to get Perez to reveal the location of a kidnapping victim. And not just any kidnapping victim but the daughter of the Louisiana governor. The mutilated corpse of the girl's bodyguard casts an ominous pall over the case, and the political pressure on alcoholic Hartmann and a small army of FBI agents is intense. This is the fourth of Ellory's powerful, literate thrillers to be published in the U.S. (the last was A Simple Act of Violence, 2011). It's one damn fine book and should be highly recommended to all but the coziest of crime-fiction fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)