By Sean Chercover
[William Morrow, 2009. 304 pages, $23.95 hardcover, $7.99 paperback]
Reviewed by Kevin Riordan
This well-received, Dilys Award-winning second novel continues the story of Ray Dudgeon, private eye and Columbia College alumnus. What’s not to like? The detective has a slightly used B.A. in journalism, and the author, Sean Chercover, is a former private investigator who also draws on sundry past jobs; he could probably write a hell of a novel about selling encyclopedias. Chercover is an active, thoughtful blogger as well.
Dudgeon established his Chicago bonafides in 2007’s Big City, Bad Blood as he tackled aldermen, the Chicago Police Department, and the Outfit (don’t call it the Mob). The P.I. goes global in this thriller, where a seemingly open-and-shut case expands fractally and engagingly, despite the fact that Trigger City isn’t really a whodunit. An investigation into just how crazy the killer was, and the power structure behind a private military corporation, carries the accidentally quixotic Dudgeon along as he works out a few issues of his own, including a Laura-like empathy for the murdered woman. The handful of characters who recur are smoothly reintroduced, and Dudgeon’s backstory is further explored.
With a deft specificity for locale, technology, character, and angry bands that begin with “the” (the Cure, the Who, the Stooges, the Clash), Chercover has cemented his place in the top ranks of today’s crime writers from any region. He does for Chicago something often attempted but rarely accomplished: making the city itself a major character, in a manner reminiscent of Frederic Brown’s classic midcentury title The Fabulous Clipjoint.
Somewhat less gruesome and blustery than in most current crime fiction, the action in Trigger City seems all the more real. Even surveillance seems interesting. Most of Dudgeon’s pain comes from such banal activities as throwing darts or sleeping on his ruined shoulder. Neither postmodern nor overly nostalgic, the book is pervaded by a mature appreciation for the vanishing charms of the city. It is refreshing, if frustrating, that the last section of the book winds down, not unlike a typical season for the Cubs.
But we live in hope: There’s always next year.
Sean Chercover earned a B.A. from Columbia in 1991. He has worked as a private investigator, scriptwriter, film and video editor, scuba diver, nightclub magician, encyclopedia salesman, car jockey, waiter, and truck driver and in other less glamorous positions.
