Patrick Quinlan, The Takedown

The Takedown

Patrick Quinlan

St. Martin's, Jun 2007, $21.95

ISBN 0312349823

Dick Miller spent five years in a California prison on a marijuana charge. Now freed, he returns to his hometown of New York City vowing to stay out of trouble by finding a job as a professional typist, the only skill outside of survival that he learned during his stay as a guest of the state. However, good intentions and fresh start resolutions do not bring in food or pay the rent; Dick learns a new life lesson that convicts do not easily obtain legal work so he takes up an offer of a pal from his high school days to work at a chop shop.

Dick goes to a bar to relax and gets drunk. Later he finds the corpse of his realtor girlfriend Dot Racine buried inside the trunk of his car. Frightened, he wonders if he killed her as he has a foggy at best memory of his binge except for the headache. Still Dick wants to believe he did not kill Dot, but unsure of what to do with her and fearing arrest, he leaves her interred in the trunk for the next few days while he fumbles and bumbles around town trying to determine who wanted her dead as he realizes it is not him and if not him, why was he set up?

The eccentric New York cast starting with Miller and including the dead Dot make for a wildly entertaining crime caper. The storyline is fast-paced from the onset but especially goes into hyperspeed when Miller becomes the ultimate amateur sleuth figuring out the murder one misstep at a time while aggravating everyone he comes into contact with, including a killer ready to up the count by one more. Readers will enjoy Dick Miller's return to the Big Apple.

Harriet Klausner