ELIMINATION by Ed Gorman

Elimination is the fifth novel featuring political consultant Dev Conrad, and, contrary to popular belief (I’ve always wanted to say that) not the last. It is election season, and Dev is in rural Illinois helping Representative Jessica Bradshaw win re-election. Ms. Bradshaw is in a dead heat with her far-right (read, Tea Party) opponent Trent Dorsey. Dorsey has a billionaire uncle—

“‘Uncle Ken,’ as Dorsey always referred to him…”

—funding television attack ads and robocalls claiming Representative Bradshaw as a drug addicted-Commie-lesbian. Dev’s appearance in Jessica’s district, and home town of Danton, Illinois, is to stop the bleeding and prepare for the final debate. Jessica wins the debate, but the celebration is cut short by a badly botched assassination attempt. An attempt so poorly executed the local law thinks it may have been staged.

Elimination is a nicely twisted mystery, and a poignant commentary on the current political environment. Dev is a wearied political strategist who often finds his clients lacking—megalomaniacs, narcissists, jerks—who just happen to, mostly, vote the right way. Dev is a light-hearted cynic (dubious but cautiously optimistic) with a dry wit and a tendency of self-deprecation—

“A lie, but what the hell. God had personally given me a daily allotment of one hundred and twenty-three lies. I was, after all, in politics.”  

The political is the center of the story providing servings of both horror and humor, and there is enough middle class angst to make anyone nervous, but it is the mystery—who shot at Jessica Bradshaw, and why—and Dev’s voice that make it pleasurable.       

Purchase a copy of Elimination at Amazon.

FLASHPOINT by Ed Gorman

Severn House Hardcover Edition

Flashpoint is the fourth novel to feature Dev Conrad.  Conrad is a former Army Intelligence operative, and current political consultant.  He has a cynical political view.  The only thing he likes less than politicians are political consultants, but he loves the game.  This time Dev is in Illinois where a client is accused of murder.  Not so much by the police, at least not publicly, but definitely by the news media.  Or, as Dev Conrad puts it—

“Sex.  A senator.  A murder.  An international orgasm.”    

The novel opens with Dev Conrad driving from his Chicago office to Senator Logan’s rural upstate cabin.  The senator telephoned Dev with some unidentified trouble, and Conrad, in a state of confusion and dread, is on his way to help.  The trouble is a beautiful women lying dead in a pool of her own blood on the porch of Senator Logan’s cabin.  The senator has a history with the woman.  She was seen at several of his campaign events in recent weeks, and the senator admits to everything but sleeping with her.

The election is a few weeks away, and the story captures the 24 hour cable news cycle, and one of the networks is aligning Senator Logan with the devil.  Conrad quickly retains Ben Zuckerman, a top-notch Chicago criminal lawyer, but Logan is holding something back.  Conrad doesn’t know what, or why, Logan isn’t forthcoming, but he is certain Logan didn’t kill the woman.

The cast of characters includes Senator Logan’s strong daughter, delicate wife, and manipulative brother.  A less than ethical operative from the other side, a beautiful local attorney, a detective, and a somewhat disconcerting federal investigator.  It is a dark story, almost cynical, without Mr Gorman’s usual wary hope.  It casts the political system in a stark, and corrupt light.  Dev Conrad compares current elected pols with the openly corrupt senators of the late 1800s, which were referred to by the industry each represented rather than their respective home states.

The mystery is top-notch.  The murderer isn’t revealed until the final pages, and I was genuinely surprised, but Flashpoint is more than a mystery.  It is social commentary on the state of the current American political environment from popular sentiment to its elected officials.  It takes a whack at the news media, specifically the cable news networks, and the hatred and misinformation disseminated by certain fringe elements, which have garnered mainstream credentials in recent years.    

Flashpoint is a serious and stark novel; however it is told with a wry sense of humor.  There are a handful of lines, which made me laugh aloud, and more than a few places where I smiled.  Not to mention it isn’t every novel that can make mention of Thomas Eagleton, communists, George W. Bush, conspiracy, and The Manchurian Candidate without devolving into something less than it is.  And what it is, is a very fine novel, but be warned Dev Conrad’s cynicism is catching.

Good News for Ed Gorman Readers

I have good news for fans of Ed Gorman and his series character Dev Conrad.  Severn House has scheduled the release of the fourth novel in the Dev Conrad series.  It is titled Flashpoint, and the release date is August 1, 2013.  The cover art looks great and the description at Amazon is even better:

“Political Consultant Devlin Conrad had the feeling that his very married client Senator Robert Logan was a lot more involved with the beautiful and mysterious Tracy Cabot than he wanted to admit. But he learned too late that the Cabot woman was a spy working for a shadowy right-wing organization – too late because by then she'd been found murdered in Senator Logan’s fishing cabin, and the police are certain that he killed her. But Conrad finds numerous suspects in the Senator's mansion and in the somewhat comic but dangerous figure of political saboteur Howie Ruskin. He must find the real killer if he is to win the election for a client whose vanity and arrogance make him right at home in the United States Senate.”

The Conrad novels are really quite good, and each of the first three is better than its predecessor.  And judging by the description of Flashpoint I suspect this trend will continue.  The first three titles are: Sleeping Dogs, Stranglehold, and Blindside.

I reviewed Sleeping Dogs in 2008 here, and Stranglehold more recently here.  

STRANGLEHOLD by Ed Gorman

Dev Conrad—the cynical yet hopeful political consultant from Ed Gorman’s 2008 novel Sleeping Dogs—returns in Stranglehold.  Conrad is a Chicago-based political consultant who has one serious flaw; he has a conscience.  He plays to win, but he has an antiquated sense of fairness and honor.  A trait that isn’t in high demand in American politics.

Susan Cooper is an ideal candidate—she is attractive, intelligent, well spoken and personable—but as the election nears she becomes erratic and secretive.  Dev Conrad is called in as a trouble-shooter to find out the problem and put a leash on the candidate.  It’s not a quick fix however—Cooper is unmoved in her strange behavior and the clues Conrad finds lead him both to and away from his target.

Stranglehold is everything a mystery should be: dark, witty, plot driven, but populated by characters that matter, and it is never generic.  Mr Gorman takes a standard plot—murder, blackmail, lust—and breaths new life into it with twists that surprise the reader and invigorate the story.  It is a murder mystery, but its cock-eyed slant tracks the story into unexpected territory.

The opening line reads: “All roads lead to motels.” A standard theme in detective fiction—the seedy motel where unspeakable madness occurs—but Ed Gorman uses it as a kind of foil.  Not a trick by any standard, but he turns the trope against itself as well as the reader.

Ed Gorman is the most reliable writer of suspense currently working.  His plots—see above—are always clever and tight, his prose is smooth and hard at once, his narrative is steady and his dialogue is crystal.  But his real power is with the people that populate his stories.  His work has a dark cynicism about it, but that cynicism is rarely projected onto his characters.  There is hope in the behavior of his characters—they tend to be kind, solid, melancholy and very real; i. e. flawed.  The hero is as flawed as the antagonist, but it is the flaws, and how the character manages them, that generate compassion and interest from the reader.

Stranglehold is different from the first Dev Conrad novel: Sleeping Dogs.  It is darker.  There is less humor, although there is plenty if you enjoy your humor dry and subtle.  The differences between the two novels is interesting only on an intellectual level because both are entertaining.  The bottom line is, Stranglehold is the real deal.  It is another example of just how good Ed Gorman is at his craft.  It is also a reminder of the injustice that his name isn’t on the same lists as Stephen King, Dean Koontz and the rest of the high quality bestsellers.