by Peter De Jonge
"Shadows Still Remain" is the first crime novel I have finished in awhile. Peter De Jonge, the author has somehow miraculously brought a fresh style to the most overworked literary territory in the history of publication. The writers I have relied on for reading entertainment had begun reworking familiar plots that sputtered on toward predictable final chapters, so it was a delight to encounter cops like De Jonge's Darlene O'Hara and Serge Krekorian. Needless to say there is a crime to be solved, and it shocks our sensibility. We want the perpetrator of the monstrous deed found and if possible drawn and quartered, but what keeps the story moving at a fast pace is the interweaving of the back stories of O'Hara, nicked "Dar" and Krekorian, simply "K", and the lively, very au courant dialogue created by De Jonge for the partnered detectives.
Dar and K work the streets of lower, Eastside Manhattan in what K refers to as a "black, piece of crap Impala". They catch the crimes committed in the alleys outside "dive" bars, and in walk-up railroad flats, the destinations of illegal immigrants; the refuse dump for New York's drug culture and sex trade. You wonder how O'Hara shows up for duty, and we read a kind of answer, "Imagination-wise, thinks O'Hara, the city never lets you down. Practically every day, it comes up with another fresh, fucked-up twist. And although few of the surprises are happy, O'Hara is usually more fascinated than repelled, and almost always grateful for the front-row seat."
When you get to know O'Hara, you will understand why she is found voluntarily serving a shift on Thanksgiving eve in the second-floor detective room of Manhattan's Seventh Precinct, an area fast by the East River. A shivering teen-ager comes in off the cold, wind-swept street to report a missing roommate, and O'Hara begins taking down the usual sordid facts, not realizing that she will be launched into a major, headline crime that will change her life.
The missing roommate turns out to be Francesca Pena, a celebrity New York University undergrad. Celebrity in the sense that she has been courted by Ivy League schools because she is an escapee from a dysfunctional family life who miraculously found her way to Miss Porter's school for debutantes, where her smarts, athletic ability and beauty make her the ideal scholarship candidate, and the subject of the inspiring stories featured in newspapers, then displayed on TV morning shows.
A mundane investigation of the missing Pena by the lowly precinct detectives is suddenly ended by the discovery of a horribly mutilated body, wrapped in a shower curtain and dumped beneath the urinals in a deserted East River Park men's room. The lead homicide detective of the police force is called in, and when O'Hara is pitted against the famous crime solver, her career is threatened. She can only save herself by doggedly pursuing clues, violating establishment rules, and surviving her own serious flaws of character.
Its a hell of a story, expertly written with the same kind of confidant strokes that are found in master paintings. Even the ending where the "Shadows Still Remain" rings with authenticity. We leave Darlene O'Hara just where she should be.
Reviewed by Don Mac Brown
Dar and K work the streets of lower, Eastside Manhattan in what K refers to as a "black, piece of crap Impala". They catch the crimes committed in the alleys outside "dive" bars, and in walk-up railroad flats, the destinations of illegal immigrants; the refuse dump for New York's drug culture and sex trade. You wonder how O'Hara shows up for duty, and we read a kind of answer, "Imagination-wise, thinks O'Hara, the city never lets you down. Practically every day, it comes up with another fresh, fucked-up twist. And although few of the surprises are happy, O'Hara is usually more fascinated than repelled, and almost always grateful for the front-row seat."
When you get to know O'Hara, you will understand why she is found voluntarily serving a shift on Thanksgiving eve in the second-floor detective room of Manhattan's Seventh Precinct, an area fast by the East River. A shivering teen-ager comes in off the cold, wind-swept street to report a missing roommate, and O'Hara begins taking down the usual sordid facts, not realizing that she will be launched into a major, headline crime that will change her life.
The missing roommate turns out to be Francesca Pena, a celebrity New York University undergrad. Celebrity in the sense that she has been courted by Ivy League schools because she is an escapee from a dysfunctional family life who miraculously found her way to Miss Porter's school for debutantes, where her smarts, athletic ability and beauty make her the ideal scholarship candidate, and the subject of the inspiring stories featured in newspapers, then displayed on TV morning shows.
A mundane investigation of the missing Pena by the lowly precinct detectives is suddenly ended by the discovery of a horribly mutilated body, wrapped in a shower curtain and dumped beneath the urinals in a deserted East River Park men's room. The lead homicide detective of the police force is called in, and when O'Hara is pitted against the famous crime solver, her career is threatened. She can only save herself by doggedly pursuing clues, violating establishment rules, and surviving her own serious flaws of character.
Its a hell of a story, expertly written with the same kind of confidant strokes that are found in master paintings. Even the ending where the "Shadows Still Remain" rings with authenticity. We leave Darlene O'Hara just where she should be.
Reviewed by Don Mac Brown
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