Poe Street
Poe Street is a quirky little road, barely a block long, with a sharp dogleg that makes it hard to see if someone is lurking just out of sight. It’s populated by six- and eight-flat buildings; some, now with boarded-up windows, have seen better days. A few yards away, on Seminary Avenue, a red-brick mansion is on fire. Inside is the body of the owner, Cary Morrison, stabbed to death. A heist gone wrong? Or something else?
Poe Street is Raleigh’s 11th novel. Known for his Paul Whelan novels set in 1980s Chicago, Raleigh this time takes readers to the post-WWII Windy City where the Normandy-beach veteran Ray Foley is trying to put his life back together in his old neighborhood. When men he’d known in his youth turn up stabbed to death, Ray is determined to find out how they were involved in the Morrison case, and who’s killing them.
An interesting addition to hardboiled fiction, Poe Street introduces readers to an independent, solitary, and tough dog-with-a-bone vet who won’t let up as he follows the trails of old friends, runs afoul of dangerous strangers, walks along the edges of organized crime, bobs and weaves with police, and falls in step with the close-to-the-vest private eye Max Silver.
Atmospheric: the novel leads readers along now-forgotten parts of Chicago like Riverview amusement park, and rail cars that housed the homeless after the Great Depression and war.
Flatfoot detection: the storyline highlights missteps and sidetracks that draw shadowy tails onto Ray’s heels. Plot twists: a missing statue (à la The Maltese Falcon?) reminds readers that an object doesn’t lead to killing unless the killer wants the victim dead. Hardboiled fans, get ready for Raleigh’s Ray Foley mysteries.
