Crime Song

March 20, 2017
Swinson’s second Frank Marr novel (after 2016’s The Second Girl) starts strong but loses focus. The former police detective turned PI is tailing a cousin, George Washington University student Jeffery Baldwin, because Jeffery is skipping classes and his mother is worried. Frank learns that Jeffery is dealing drugs and follows him to a meeting with his supplier at a D.C. nightclub. Rather than confront Jeffery, Frank—an addict whose stash is getting low—decides to rob him, but when he breaks into Jeffery’s apartment, he can’t find the goods. Back at Frank’s house, the cops are waiting. His electronics, vinyl collection, and handgun are missing, and Jeffery is dead in the kitchen. The police suspect that Frank murdered Jeffery and staged the burglary to cover it up, forcing him to launch his own investigation. A dearth of action, a surplus of surveillance, and unconvincing stakes make for a saggy middle, and though the final stretch is adrenaline-fueled, the ending is too pat. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider/ICM.

April 1, 2017
Good cops and bad cops, good burglars and bad burglars, murder and mayhem in Washington, D.C.Author Swinson is himself a retired detective, and familiarity with policing and crime, and an eye for detail, provides a solid framework for the story as Frank Marr, a retired D.C. narcotics detective-turned-private eye, makes a second appearance (The Second Girl, 2016, etc.) in this cocaine-fueled caper. Marr is a cokehead who feeds his habit partly through his assignments, shaking down dealers or burgling the homes of those he has under surveillance. As the book opens, he's turned a sweet trick: he can confirm to his Aunt Linda that her college-student son, Jeffrey, is indeed dealing dope and has a plan to steal the dope while Jeffrey is in class. But while Marr is breaking into Jeffrey's apartment, Jeffrey is burgling Marr's place and is killed in the process. Of course Marr must conceal the real facts from his old friends on the force, complicating their investigations. Sleuthing on his own, Marr identifies one burglar and the driver of the cab that is used to carry the stolen items to be fenced. He pressures these two, the details begin to emerge, and the trail leads to a dirty cop and an old grudge. All this while Marr continues to feed his habit and at every turn has to face the question of how his addiction will be maintained. Though he claims early in the book that his relationship with lawyer Leslie Costello matters most to him ("Last thing I want to do is fuck it up with her. You don't get that many chances in life"), in fact she figures only slightly in the narrative, and by the end, the relationship is in shambles. This is consistent with the real agenda of addiction; Marr cares more about blow than anything else and illustrates this in other situations. But it is just that consistency that makes the ending so unsatisfying. Though Marr manages to arrange some measure of justice for some of the characters, the body count is high; he never confronts the destruction of his relationship with Leslie; and he seems to think he can ride off into a drug-free sunset, with all accounts squared. A gritty thriller with convincing details, but the feel-good conclusion undermines the effort.

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Starred review from April 1, 2017
Forced to retire early from the narcotics unit of the Washington, D.C., police department because of his cocaine addiction, Frank Marr puts his detecting skills to use as a PI. When his Aunt Linda, who was like a mother to him, asks him to check on her college-student son, Jeffrey, Marr soon determines that his cousin is dealing. But Marr is totally unprepared to find his house burglarized, with even his cherished vinyl records that had belonged to his mother taken, and Jeffrey shot dead in his kitchen. This is personal for Marr, who's determined to get the person who killed his cousin despite being told not to interfere with the homicide investigation. With occasional help from an old pal on the force, Marr is soon deeply involved in the drug trade and taking risks that imperil his relationship with cop-turned-defense-attorney Leslie Costello. Former DC detective Swinson knows his stuff, from police procedures to drug use to authentic locale. His second in the Frank Marr series (after The Second Girl, 2016) features sharp prose, spot-on dialogue, and a protagonist as complicated and unlikely as he is appealing. Fans of gritty crime fiction will want to add Swinson to their reading lists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)