Lake of Darkness
Joe (Flip) Flippety is a black cop working in Chicago during WWI. Some grotesque decapitations and mutilations of identical black twins have taken place, and Mayor ‘Big Bill’ Thompson hires Flip to investigate. Flip has fingers in every pie from his street days, so, armed with $10,000 expense/bribe money, he initially visits each murder site, takes a token from each, and delivers them to a hideous old crone who can divine clues from them. Her words between her ghastly cackling are wrapped in more double-entendre than Flip is able to unravel. He next visits known haunts, gleans information, and pulls in favours owed. One visit is to the local circus, where the young magician Tark hitches himself to Flip’s side to help in the chase. Sally Battle, the beautiful madam of a prestigious brothel also has personal reasons to aid in Flip’s search. Everything is tied to identical twins, but the answer to the bizarre mystery must wait until the very end as the clues seem to make the mystery all the more baffling.
If I had to classify this novel, it would be as a macabre police thriller/urban horror/supernatural murder mystery. Kenemore has done a terrific job of researching Chicago history and incorporating it into this grisly tale, which winds through the underbelly of the city. The characters are meaty and substantial, and I was particularly taken with Flip, Tark and Sally but was unable to guess their connection. There are interesting tidbits about early Chicago, Prohibition, organised crime, and the Great Migration, even where the city derives its name (shikaakwa). The trio’s visits to the Bucket of Blood bar invoke all that is intended by the name! This is not a book for the faint-hearted. It is extremely graphic, with enough imbibing to float a tanker, and some rather unsavoury brothel goings-on, but it’s a highly absorbing read, once picked up, very hard to put down!
