Cliff Walk

Starred review from March 19, 2012
The legality of prostitution in Rhode Island figures prominently in the plot of DeSilva’s sterling follow-up to 2010’s Rogue Island, which won Edgar and Macavity awards for best first novel. Liam Mulligan, a reporter for the declining Providence Dispatch, must handle a range of stories, from the discovery of body parts in Scalici Recycling’s pig farm in Pascoag to the apparent murder of Sal Maniella, pornographer and owner of several strip clubs, whose body is found on the rocks below Newport’s famed Cliff Walk. Mulligan’s investigative work keeps him hopping, as do sexy black lawyer Yolanda Mosley-Jones, who represents the Maniellas; Mulligan’s divorce-seeking wife, Dorcas; and Maniella’s ex-SEAL bodyguards. Mulligan sports a bad ulcer, plenty of attitude, and connections that span all strata of society. The brilliantly limned supporting characters include Rhode Island attorney general Fiona McNerney (aka Attila the Nun) and earnest Edward Anthony Mason IV, “the scion of six inbred Yankee families that had owned the Dispatch since the Civil War.” Look for this one to garner more award nominations. Agent: Susanna Einstein, LJK Literary.

May 1, 2012
Fresh from the Most Corrupt State competition comes a second persuasive entry that links pretty much every citizen of Providence to a child-snuff-porn ring. Cosmo Scalici, convinced that he deserves more respect as a waste recycler who mainly feeds trash to pigs, is less than happy when one of his hogs beats him out for the child's hand that he's just glimpsed. Soon after a post-slaughter autopsy confirms Scalici's find, along with his dim prospects for respect, someone--State Police Capt. Steve Parisi won't confirm whether it's Salvatore Maniella, Rhode Island's premier pornographer--gets shot to death and takes a thoroughly disfiguring header off Newport's scenic Cliff Walk. The two incidents are obviously linked, but in order to connect the dots, reporter Liam Mulligan, of the dying Providence Dispatch, will have to wade through a pit of waist-high filth: an online ring of child pornographers, a vigilante who's riding around town executing same, an interchangeable series of pole dancers coming on to him (who knew prostitution was legal in Rhode Island until 2010?) and bodyguards warning him to quit hassling Sal Maniella's daughter Vanessa, queen of the city's strip clubs, and of course Mulligan's estranged wife, Dorcas, who phones him every time she goes off her meds. The high-casualty plot is a mess. But the epic, warts-and-all portrait of the city is scathing; ulcer-ridden wiseacre Mulligan (Rogue Island, 2010) is never less than compelling company; and the analogies between the newspaper business and the porn business are spot-on. As in Mulligan's hard-nosed debut, the real star here is Providence, which the author knows intimately.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from May 1, 2012
Ex-journalist DeSilva won both the Edgar and Macavity Awards for best first novel with his debut thriller, Rogue Island (2010). His second book proves the awards were no fluke. Liam Mulligan returns as a man who fell in love a long time ago with the wrong profession, journalism, and who records the layoffs and cutbacks inflicted on his daily paper in Providence, Rhode Island, as he struggles to keep doing investigative work. A last-minute assignment to cover a soiree at a Newport mansion finds Mulligan catching a breather on the famed Cliff Walk fronting the mansions and facing the sea. He's just in time to see a man in a tuxedo fall to his death on the rocks below. The man turns out to be an Internet pornographer with ties to Rhode Island's power elite. And his death turns out to be from a gunshot in his neck. Mulligan has to convince Thanks-Dad, the son of the paper's publisher, to let him investigate. His examination into the Cliff Walk murder leads into the porn empire, which has tentacles in so many power brokers' pockets, and into a series of child murders. Although DeSilva is writing about pornography, he never exploits it for cheap thrills. His plotting is exquisite. Mulligan's musings on the dying newspaper industry, coupled with his unrelenting love and respect for journalism, could only come from someone like DeSilva, who worked for AP for decades. Terrific on every level.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)