Bad Things Happen

Starred review from May 25, 2009
Dolan gets everything right in his debut, a suspense novel that breathes new life into familiar themes. The enigmatic David Loogan, who's recently moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., has stumbled into an editing job for Gray Streets
, a mystery magazine, after anonymously submitting a short story. One night, Loogan's boss, Tom Kristoll, asks him for help in disposing of a corpse. Loogan goes to Kristoll's house and does so, despite his suspicions that Kristoll's account of how the man ended up dead is incomplete at best. When Kristoll later dies in a fall from his office window, the police mark Loogan, who's been having an affair with Kristoll's wife, as a person of interest. Pitch-perfect prose and sophisticated characterizations drive the noirish plot, which offers plenty of unexpected twists. Fans of Peter Abrahams and Scott Turow will find a lot to like. While the solution may strike some as a tad improbable, the talent Dolan displays suggests he has a bright future.

June 1, 2009
Dolan's debut thriller begins simply enough, with two men burying a third in a forested section of Ann Arbor's Marshall Park. From there, it gets ever more loopy, far-fetched and baroque.

Rolling stone David Loogan (not his real name) has been working as an editor for the literary magazine Gray Streets. He has a good relationship with his boss, Tom Kristoll, and an even better relationship with his boss's wife. But he's a secretive man who keeps to himself, and that doesn't change when Tom asks him to help dispose of a body. Michael Beccanti was an ex-con with a long history of break-ins who came to his office to rob him, Tom explains; he bashed the intruder in self-defense. It's not long before David discovers that Tom's story is a tissue of lies, but by then the body is resting in Ann Arbor's good green earth, followed shortly by the remains of Tom, who allegedly took a header out his office window. Police detective Elizabeth Waishkey, not fooled by the suicide angle, identifies the obvious suspect in Tom's murder just in time to hear that he's died as well, apparently by his own hand. Though David and Elizabeth are clearly attracted to one another, their investigations take them in separate directions, a divergence that becomes even more pronounced when a retired New York cop turns up with a story about David's past that sends his quarry packing. Although the resulting tale fits Tom's definition of Gray Streets fiction—"Plans go wrong, bad things happen, people die"—Elizabeth keeps telling David that"this isn't a story in Gray Streets," and she's right. There are far too many violent deaths, plot twists, ghostwriters, red herrings, guilty secrets, false theories, unconnected murderers, come-from-nowhere revelations and 11th-hour switcheroos for any self-respecting literary journal.

On the other hand, Dolan has provided a seven-course banquet for readers with a taste for deliriously overplotted pulp with just enough polish to keep them from feeling guilty.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from July 15, 2009
Shortly after a man who calls himself David Loogan arrives in Ann Arbor, he gets a job as assistant editor to Tom Kristoll and begins sleeping with Tom's wife, Laura. Then Tom asks him to help bury a body lying in the office of "Gray Streets", the mystery magazine they edit. When Tom is found dead six floors below his office window, Det. Elizabeth Waishkey begins to investigateand so does Loogan. Several other murders occur, all of which seem linked somehow to "Gray Streets" and to its various authors. Loogan himself becomes a suspect and potential victim but continues investigating while on the run from the police. Dolan has fun contrasting real and fictional detecting, and all the characters are keenly aware of this, too. VERDICT For a debut novelist, Dolan, a freelance editor, is unusually skilled in narrative. His humor shows not only in the fiction-vs.-reality theme but also in the twists and turns of plot and language that keep the characters and the reader guessingand engrossed. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy twisty and witty crime thrillers. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 3/1/09.]Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2009
Take a ride on the mean streets of . . . Ann Arbor? This tasty tale employs the somewhat common trope of crime among crime writers to decidedly uncommon effect. David Loogan, a man with a mysterious past, tries his hand at writing a short story for Gray Streets, a literary crime-fiction journal. His inability to stop tinkering with it lands him an editing job, leading to friendship with the popular editor Tom Kristoll and his wife, Laura. But then Loogan sleeps with Laura, Tom is defenstrated, and Loogan is on a hunt for the killer, despite constant reminders that this isnt a story from Gray Streets. Oh, but it is. As more people die, every character, every motiveand every conceivable combination of characters and motivesmust be considered, and Loogans own actions put him at odds with an equally determined detective, Elizabeth Waishkey. This murderers row of writers, editors, and interns would kill for good editingor maybe because of it. Dolans neatly symmetrical plot is tight, his dialogue is crisp, and his humor wry. (Rarely have suspects been so archly articulate.) A twisty whodunit with a thrillers pace, Bad Things Happen lends new meaning to the term ghostwriters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)