Wed 20 Dec 2017
Reviewed by Barry Gardner: RICHARD WHITTINGHAM – Their Kind of Town.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[2] Comments
RICHARD WHITTINGHAM – Their Kind of Town. Joe Morrison #2. Donald J. Fine, hardcover, 1994. Avon, paperback, 1996.
Whittingham’s first book, in which Joe Morrison also played a part and which I missed, was State Street (1991). He’s also written non-fiction books about the NFL draft and the life of a street cop.
What we have here is Chicago. Though there’s much more to be said about the real city, for our purposes Chicago means cops and gangs of both the street and organized crime variety, and violence. Very soon after the book opens, a semi-independent criminal is executed for showing poor judgment in who he robbed. One witness to the killing, a young black gang member, was also killed — but one wasn’t. The story deals with how both the police and the gang bosses attempt to deal with the potentially disastrous situation.
Their Kind of Town was a pleasant surprise. Prose, plot, and people all well above average. The story is told from multiple viewpoints, and Morrison is really no more the focus than several others on both sides of the law.
I thought the dialogue for the various and sharply differing characters was excellent, and that each of the major players came to life very nicely. Though there was a fair amount of bloodshed, this isn’t an action-packed book in its feel; the pace is steady rather than frenetic. It’s one of the best gritty city cop novels I’ve read in a long while, and I’ll definitely find and read the first in the series.
Bibliographic Note: The two Joe Morrison books are the only two listed for Richard Whittingham in Al Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV.
December 20th, 2017 at 11:41 pm
You always wonder what happened when a writer seems to have it right and just drops out.
December 21st, 2017 at 12:41 am
I’m trusting Barry’s judgement on this one, which I own but have never read, and that was my exact thought when I posted this review as well. My guess is that Whittingham found writing non-fiction paid a lot better. From his obituary, which I just now found online:
“The author of more than 30 books, Mr. Whittingham spent his adult life writing, from books on college football and the Bears to novels set in Chicago.
“He coaxed the reserved Joe DiMaggio into opening up, chronicled the police work of former Chicago detective Joe DiLeonardi and penned books on State Street and Skokie.
“He was perhaps best known for his books on the history of sports teams, including the White Sox, the Washington Redskins, the Dallas Cowboys and the Los Angeles Dodgers.”
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-02-24/news/0502240392_1_mr-whittingham-charles-whittingham-books