Absent Friends

Rating:
Summary: strong look at the immediate post 9/11 Manhattan
Review: NYC firefighter Captain James McCaffrey is one of the fallen heroes who died trying to save lives during the tragic collapse of the Twin Towers. James had a heroic history with the department before his death; however reporter Harry Randall paints a darker side of the fallen hero. He insists that two decades ago 9/11, James and his six Staten Island compatriots were involved and probably killed a stepson of a mob kingpin; one of them Mark went to prison.

The four survivors of the magnificent seven, two including Mark having died years ago, rally to protect their deceased childhood leader's reputation. The final foursome look back at what happened, but soon begin to wonder why James consistently and anonymously gave money to the family of Mark. Could James be paying off blackmail, guilt or could he be simply taking care of a friend?

The multiple perspectives, which include flashbacks and the thoughts when alive of individuals now dead, adds complexity, but makes it difficult to keep track of who thinks what of James. Still the backdrop of the aftermath of 9/11 on the City provides a fantastic thriller as the James-Mark relationship is shown up as a minor nothingness in comparison to the humongous tragedy. S.J. Rozan keeps the two outlooks apart so that the audience admires a heroic fallen first responder in a city reeling but already beginning to recover by 9/12. His allegedly dark past seems minuscule with his actions when people needed him. This is a strong look at the immediate post 9/11 Manhattan.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: A novel that transcends the limitations of a genre
Review: S.J. Rozan is best known as a mystery writer, having garnered just about every award possible for her traditional mystery series featuring the unlikely P.I. team of Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. ABSENT FRIENDS is not part of this series but is instead a stand-alone book, in every sense of the word. It is funny, tender, romantic, sad, hopeful and tragic, often within the same paragraph. It goes beyond the premise of great literature, that good people can do bad things and bad people can do good; rather, it explores that area where good works, no matter how nobly or well-intended, result in tragedy. It is also one of the best books from any genre that I have read this year.

James McCaffery, the protagonist of ABSENT FRIENDS, is dead as the novel commences. Jim is one of New York City's bravest, a fire captain who loses his life during a rescue mission in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks upon the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. He is initially spotlighted in a newspaper article as a hero, one whose motto was "first in, last out" and who lived that motto right up until the moment when he drew his last breath.

Harry Randall, a reporter whose best stories are years behind him, stumbles across a lead that causes him to believe that McCaffery may have been involved in a criminal enterprise with a known mobster, a man he had known since childhood. The story, implausible as it seems to the shell-shocked citizenry, is given a bizarre credence when Randall is found dead, the victim of an apparent but suspicious suicide.

The story is picked up by Laura Stone, Randall's protégé and lover, who is determined to not only unravel the mystery of Randall's sudden death, but also to finish the story he was working on. Rozan tells the story from several viewpoints, moving back and forth in time as she describes McCaffery and the circle of friends he had kept since childhood, friends whom he had loved and protected in life and who attempt in turn to protect him in death.

Rozan is perfect here, creating an atmosphere of foreboding, of doom, almost from the first sentence, even though it begins with an account of childhood joy and discovery. The atmospheric tension is sustained throughout and is so strong that one is almost afraid to turn the page, to discover what is to be revealed. That it will end badly is a foregone conclusion, if subtlety so; the only question is one of degree.

ABSENT FRIENDS is one of those rare novels that transcends the limitations of a genre and stands on its own as a novel for the ages. This is a story that, once read, will not be forgotten. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Rating:
Summary: Good, but oddly unsatsifying
Review: The comment in the Amazon review that this novel is primarily a character study is dead on. I found the personalities and interplay among the main characters interesting, but do not view the events of the story as significant enough to warrant the term "tragedy" in the classic literary sense. Rather than being tragic, the tale of Jimmy and his childhood pals feels like an inexorable march to a doomed fate, with one misunderstanding piled upon another until none of the characters has a clear picture of what is actually taking place in the story.

And while I don't want to give away the end of the story, I will say that I found it depressing in that everyone ends up alone and unhappy, and what's worse, neither the characters nor the reader has much idea why, or what any of the characters might have done to change things. Perhaps that's exactly the point that Rozan is trying to make -- that our lives are pretty much determined from the time we're born and that we're prisoners of genetics. If that's the case, I'll pass on her philosophy.

Certainly the events of 9/11 were tragic, but this book is about much more than the terrorist attack. As a New Yorker, I have first-hand experience of the attack and its aftermath, and understand how 9/11 underlies all of what most of us do each day. Nevertheless, Rozan fails to convince me that the actions of her characters are driven by the events of 9/11 or that they are responding to events in their daily lives in any way differently than they would had the attack never taken place.

This novel is worth reading, but wait until it comes out in paperback and is less expensive.