King of the Cracksmen

November 24, 2014
Debut novelist O’Flaherty creates a well-rounded alternate 19th-century setting, in which Russia controls much of North America, for this otherwise unremarkable mystery. After the murder of boarding house owner Maggie O’Shea, her boyfriend, Liam McCool, sets out to find the killer. Along the way, McCool discovers a multi-level conspiracy that traces throughout the U.S. government and learns that he is an unwitting pawn of Edwin Stanton, the most powerful man in America. McCool is joined in his quest by Becky Fox, a Nellie Bly stand-in, as they travel across an authoritarian post–Civil War country. McCool, a hard-bitten safecracker (the titular cracksman) who’s trying to do the right thing, lacks the suavity to be a successful antihero. The dialogue often seems to be for the benefit of the reader rather than the characters. The world McCool and Fox move through demonstrates that O’Flaherty has done plenty of research and thought through the implications of the changes to history, but even the rich background can’t quite balance out the book’s other shortcomings.

Starred review from November 15, 2014
A New York safecracker forcibly turned secret agent takes on his corrupt bosses in this broad and brawling debut.Part alternate history, part Gangs of New York, the tale opens with unwilling "Pilkington" (i.e., Pinkerton) agent Liam McCool infiltrating the violent Molly Magees in Pennsylvania's coal fields. He teams up with intrepid journalist Becky Fox (plainly modeled on Nellie Bly), and from there, it's on to the stews of 1877 Manhattan and over the Mississippi into Little Russia for clandestine meetings with European-educated freedom fighter Crazy Horse and his associate Laughing Wolf (formerly known as George Armstrong Custer). It seems that ruthless Secretary of War Edwin Stanton has hidden away the not-quite-assassinated Lincoln and placed the United States in a "temporary" state of emergency. Now he is using fear and flag-waving to bolster public support for a war to reclaim the western part of the continent-and worse. For good measure, O'Flaherty tucks in encounters with the likes of Mark Twain and genius "Predictive Engine" designer Ada Lovelace as well as plagues of weirdly oversized rats and other colorful details. His doughty duo plunges through frequent hails of gunfire and massive explosions into battles, gang-led riots and flights in speedy dirigible Black Deltas. Yet more demolition at the end leaves the door open for sequels. As Liam remarks: "That ought to ginger them up." He could be referring to readers of this rousingly violent, funny, sometimes shockingly profane opener.

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December 1, 2014

Although he usually works as a cracksman, sneaking into secure places and opening unbreakable safes, Liam McCool has agreed to work for the government to avoid going to prison. The Department of Public Safety has immense power in this alternative steampunk world, in which the United States has ceded the land west of the Mississippi to Russia and Lincoln was never assassinated. Unfortunately, the president hasn't been seen in years, leaving Public Safety head Edwin Stanton and his fleet of automatons to rule the country through terror and intimidation. Liam doesn't like being under Stanton's thumb and teams up with intrepid reporter Becky Fox to take down his corrupt government. VERDICT While there are a lot of fun moments in this debut steampunk adventure from O'Flaherty (who has written extensively for the movies), it is overstuffed with New York gangs, Pennsylvania unions, Russian royals, a murder mystery, and even a budding romance.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2015
Debut novelist O'Flaherty has cranked his engines to full power for his emergence on the sci-fi/fantasy scene. His catchily titled King of the Cracksmen imagines an alternate Reconstruction-era East Coast: a broke and blighted but still whole U.S. recovering from a devastating Civil War fought with terrifying steampunk weapons and automatons. Lincoln survived the attempt on his life, but, having retreated from the public eye, his generals rule the nation with martial law. Revolution stirs, and expert safecracker Liam McCool is about to get caught up in another fight for freedom. The book's mix of elements can sometimes make it hard to tell how seriously it's taking itself, or expects the reader to take it. Names of characters like Liam McCool and love interest Becky Fox play on noir-like flavors of camp, but a fascination with nineteenth-century American history and its brutality often pulls themes the opposite direction. The transitions can be occasionally jarring, but O'Flaherty's style always maintains a sense of fun to keep the machine running smoothly.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)