We Were Kings

April 4, 2016
It’s June 1954, and an oppressive heat entombs Boston in O’Malley and Purdy’s well-written if bleak sequel to 2015’s Serpents in the Cold. Their broken antiheroes, Dante Cooper and Cal O’Brien, have each recently suffered a personal loss, and those losses are keenly felt throughout the novel. Heroin addict Dante has a fingertip hold on sobriety, while ex-cop Cal struggles to keep his security business afloat. Both answer the call, though, when Det. Owen Mackey, Cal’s policeman cousin, asks for their help in his pursuit of IRA sympathizers who are running guns and murdering suspected informers. The Irish club scene of the time has a role in the story, as does Dante’s skill at the piano, but the unforgiving temperatures, easy violence, and grim state of the South Boston neighborhoods overwhelm any joy that the bright lights and dance floors might impart. More than one bloody killing will catch readers by surprise. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment.

April 1, 2016
Tough guys in a tough town as the Irish Republican Army wages war in 1950s Boston. O'Malley and Purdy's sequel to Serpents in the Cold (2015) picks up several years after Cal O'Brien lost his wife in a firebombing, and his mental scars are still deep and raw. He's a former cop, now a private investigator, and recruits his piano-playing, reformed junky pal, Dante Cooper, to help the police in Irish Boston. Owen Mackey, Cal's cousin and a police detective, senses that his case is not just a bizarre murder and asks for their eyes and ears in the Irish neighborhoods of the city. Boston suffers in a heat wave and bodies start showing up. One, tarred and feathered, sends a signal that this is bigger than local gangs at play. In Galway, Sean "the General" Mullen is managing a gun and ammunition trade from Boston to the homeland for the IRA and sends his soldiers to fix the problem of a stalled shipment. The war of Republicans and Royalists is imported to Boston Harbor. It's hard not to compare this novel with its predecessor, especially with an overabundance of references to the back story. But this one drags. Although O'Malley and Purdy do violence extremely well, the suspense in this story is anemic--an endless watch of sitting in cars and drinking, sitting in bars and drinking, Cal and Dante each wallowing in flashbacks to life before trauma. The story starts well as the mystery builds on the body count, but once the reader knows who's on the killing end and who's trying to take control of the missing boatload of guns, it becomes predictable. One good outnumbered shootout to close the loop and the novel ends with a fizzle. This book feels like a place holder for the next. The authors deliver noir done well in dark-city descriptions and a cast of damaged characters but fall short on delivering a thrill.

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Starred review from April 1, 2016
Set in 1954 Boston, this brilliant second entry in the Boston Saga (after Serpents in the Cold, 2015) sizzles. The city is in the grip of a record heat wave, 102 degrees hot. Just too damn hot. You can smell it, taste it. You can see it, too, even when the lights go out as random circuits melt down. These are some seriously sweltering, determinedly noir mean streets. Cal O'Brien, the war-damaged former cop, is still mourning the death of his wife, and Dante Cooper is still battling a heroin addiction. Like his rattletrap of a car, Dante is a wounded machine. Both are men who need to suffer to remind themselves that they are alive, to be one of the living. An empty boat believed to have been carrying guns and ammo bound for Ireland turns up, along with the body of a man executed in the classic style of the Irish Republican Army. A string of brutal murders follows, and a desperate Boston PD detective enlists Cal and Dante to help in a harrowing investigation. True noir never has a happy ending. The ending you get here is more ominous than everything that came before, yet you are left with a sense that these guys will somehow survive what is coming their waythey will live to suffer on. This stunning narrative will enrapture fans of James Crumley and the astonishingly deep and dark Sara Gran.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2016

Serpents in the Cold introduced us to former cop Cal O'Brien and his friend Dante Cooper, who investigated a murder in 1950s Boston. Now, a body has been found floating in the Charlestown locks, clearly an Irish Republican Army act of retaliation against an informer, as the victim has been tarred, feathered, and shot to death. With a 30,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2016

In 1950s Boston, a body is discovered tarred and feathered at the Charlestown locks in a fashion typical of a local gang. However, police detective Owen Mackey recalls that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) meted out similar punishment to informants when they ruled the city's underworld before World War II. In addition, Mackey learns that a boat with ties to the IRA recently entered Boston Harbor transporting contraband firearms and ammunition. Mackey enlists O'Brien, his cousin and an ex-cop, and O'Brien's friend Dante Cooper to perform reconnaissance for him. When Mackey is slain, O'Brien and Cooper redouble their efforts to avenge their friend. VERDICT The authors' second installment (after Serpents in the Cold) is a solid addition to the noir genre. Their coarse depictions of Boston will appeal to fans of Dennis Lehane and Robert Parker's Jesse Stone series. New readers should begin with the first book. [See Prepub Alert, 12/14/16.]--Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.