Bag Men

Rating:
Summary: Beantown Blues
Review: John Flood's Bag Men takes place in the Boston of 1965, post JFK assassination and pre MLK assassination. The old order crumbles to give way to the new. The Catholic church plans to conduct mass in English. The boys in blue who've always kept order with their fists are under scrutiny for the beating of three black choirboys on Christmas Eve. And on the streets, addicts die in record numbers from strange new synthetic drugs.

The book opens with the body of a murdered priest, found on a snowy runway at Logan Airport. Ray Dunn, assistant D.A. and son of a cop who was on the take, investigates the killing as his younger brother Biff joins up with the guys at Narcotics. In the background: the shadowy hand of the federal government conducting experiments on psychiatric patients.

Bag Men fulfills its potential as a suspenseful read with an unguessable climax. Some of the secondary characters are a little weak, but the primary characters are interesting enough to keep the reader's attention on the story. One note: John Flood is the pseudonym of Mark Costello, a federal prosecutor in Boston and author of Big If. Bag Men is the more rough-hewn of the two books. So if you read Bag Men and enjoy it, do yourself a favor and read Big If as well.

Rating:
Summary: 1960s Boston
Review: Mr Flood's book is a very worthy first effort. Although meant to be a thriller, the emphasis is on character - where it should be. The early part of the novel does a good job of setting the scene and letting you get to know the main characters, Roy Dolan and Manning. Assuming that Mr. Flood, a pseudonym, practices anywhere in the Boston area, it was wise to keep his real name disguised. The picture he paints of offical Boston is not pretty. Granting that this is still a genre novel, the effect is convincing. Unfortunately, Mr. Flood places less emphasis on character in the latter half of the book and stresses action instead. This wasn't a surprise but it is a disappointment. At the end I wanted to know more about the characters

Rating:
Summary: Druggies, bribery, psychiatry gone wrong, and revenge
Review: The novel has a complex plot with no winners. There are flashbacks to establish characters and relationships. Various sub-plots wind together to reach a conclusion, but it's not a complete conclusion, even with the epilogue. If you are looking for a clean, clear-cut case, with a hero prevailing, this is not the book for you.

The setting is Boston in the early 1960's. The story deals with the seamier side of life. There were still open racial prejudices, and police who kicked down doors and beat non-white citizens who they thought might be guilty of something, especially if they were in the wrong neighborhood. Drug dealers, informers, and police did their thing, with payoffs in both directions.

The main consideration was image. Things could be done to cover up potential scandals that might embarrass the government, the church, or high placed individuals and their families. You could get ahead by playing the game, or get trampled by going against the establishment. Spear carriers sometimes get sacrificed, like pawns in a chess game.