We All Fall Down

There's plenty of murder and mayhem in this latest Michael Kelly adventure, and narrator Stephen Hoye makes the most of it by pacing the action well. The nursery rhyme this book's title comes from refers to the sixteenth-century epidemic of "Black Death," which killed one third of humanity. That's close to what detective Michael Kelly is called on to combat in Harvey's newest. Someone has released a deadly pathogen on the West Side of Chicago, and while corpses are loaded onto trains for cremation, Kelly searches for the source. Somehow the answer relates to a murdered Korean merchant, a Mafia boss, and a local gang. Hoye's accents are highly believable, and his narrative voice is unusual and intriguing. Overall, there's nothing in this performance that lets the listener down. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Starred review from June 13, 2011
Harvey shows how a thriller focused on bioterrorism should be done in his outstanding fourth novel featuring Chicago PI Michael Kelly (after The Third Rail). At a high-level meeting that includes the city's mayor and Homeland Security agents, two scientists reveal that a biowarning device in a subway tunnel has detected the possible presence of a pathogen. Kelly provides security for the biologists when they visit the site of what everyone hopes is a false positive. Skeptical of the explanation for why the Feds or Chicago PD aren't being used for the job, Kelly soon learns that some form of superbug is felling Chicagoans left and right. As the city is quarantined, Kelly risks his life to track down the truth, a search that brings him into conflict with the Mafia and a ruthless narcotics gang. The complexity of the plot never overwhelms the narrative flow in this utterly persuasive view of a present-day apocalyptic nightmare.