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SQUEEZE PLAY by R.J. Kaiser & 7,000 CLAMS by Lee Irby
A NOIR DOUBLEPLAY!
Hanging on every pitch this weekend of a rare five game series (yes, that’s right, five games!) between my beloved NY Yankees and the dreaded Boston Red Sox, I am reminded of just how archetypal the game of baseball truly is. The immense, ubiquitous and, to my mind at least, somewhat plebian popularity of football aside, the grand old game is indeed (as many have pointed out) a metaphor for life. Such thoughts – and listening to the game on the radio as I invariably do gives me lots of time to think about such things – led me to recall a few pieces of noir/mystery fiction I have read over the past few years that have used baseball as plot motif to a greater or lesser extent. In that vein, I offer the following appraisals of R.J. Kaiser’s novel Squeeze Play from way back in 2002 and of Lee Irby’s 7,000 Clams from 2005. Both reviews are previously published. The Kasier appeared originally in either Mystery News or in the now sadly defunct Mystery Review (R.I.P. Barbara!!!), I just can’t recall which. The Irby saw print in Mystery News and is also available as a featured review of that novel on Amazon.com.
Squeeze Play
by R.J. Kaiser
ISBN 1-55166-936-6
$23.95
September 2002
The author of Hoodwinked and Glamourpuss, R.J. Kaiser hits a homerun with his latest novel Squeeze Play. As the title indicates the book uses a pervasive baseball motif – including a simmering bicoastal inter-league rivalry between the Giants and the Yankees – to tell a story that is more about self-discovery, family ties and, ultimately, redemption than it is about murder, political corruption, greed and legal skullduggery.
Nick Sasso is an ex-cop from San Francisco who left the fabled city-by-the-bay for New York where he now runs a trendy midtown eatery. When Nick departed the left coast, however, he did so under a cloud. Carelessness with evidence cost Nick his career and the respect of his former partners. Things were little better on the domestic front as Sasso’s marriage ended in ruins and, unable to live up to the expectations of his father and older brother – who together run the family’s longtime business and San Francisco landmark, the Yankee Clipper restaurant – Nick lit out for the Big Apple determined to make a go of it and, in the process, prove everybody back home wrong.
Surprisingly, Nick is on the verge of doing just that when things start to go horribly awry. Called back to California with the news that his father has had a stroke and that his older brother Joe (and with him the family business) is in serious financial difficulty, Nick vows, for once in his life, to get it right and face up to rather than run away from his responsibilities. Sasso’s resolve is sorely tested when Joe and his attorney, Sonny Culp, are murdered. Teamed up with Culp’s ex-wife, Billie Fox, Nick is committed both to catching the murderers and to saving the venerable Clipper. Against the backdrop of an intriguing on-again-off-again romance between the two of them, Sasso (bleeds Yankee pinstripes) and Fox (diehard Giants fan) expose a risky get-rich-quick scheme and a deadly conspiracy at the highest levels of San Francisco’s legal and political pyramid. Along the way the reader is treated to a story that is as gritty and suspenseful as it is witty and moving.
Squeeze Play is notable for its complex, multi-layered plot, its surprising yet satisfying ending and for its huge ensemble cast of offbeat and memorable characters. The portrayal of Nick Sasso is particularly compelling. Presented “warts and all,” Nick grows and matures in the course of the story and the emotional and psychological obstacle course he must navigate will resonate with anyone who has ever had to return to the “scene of the crime” (as it were) and overcome a debilitating personal or professional failure. As the novel progresses, the plot becomes more a vehicle for Sasso to achieve some measure of reconciliation (with his past, his family and with himself) than simply a means for the reader to discover whodunit and why. For that reason alone, this book is a refreshing departure from more conventional crime fiction.
All of that is not to say that Squeeze Play is without its flaws. Simply put, weighing in as it does at a solid 464 pages, this book is too long by about one-third. Sufficient space for character development is one thing, but the crime novel as War and Peace is quite another! Tighter editing – especially in the first 150 pages or so – would have transformed a thoroughly entertaining and readable book into an utter page-turner. Kaiser should be applauded for his ambition and attention to detail but, somewhere along the way, someone should have told him that even in trying to tell the whole story less is often more.
When all is said and done, Squeeze Play can be highly recommended on any number of different levels. If you opt to tackle this tome, however, give yourself plenty of time to digest all that Kaiser brings to the table. With that in mind, this is one of those titles you might consider packing for that long flight, for that trip to the mountains or that long-awaited weekend at the beach. You don’t necessarily have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this book but, with its somewhat leisurely pace and subtle nuances of strategy and psychology, you might like it even more if you are.
7,000 Clams
by Lee Irby
Doubleday $23.95
ISBN 0385511892
January 2005
What's as much fun as a barrel of monkeys? Well, you might try 7,000 CLAMS, the first novel by college history professor Lee Irby. And that's "clams" as in bread, dough, scratch, jack, moolah and dinero. Seven thousand of which was a pretty good chunk-of-change in 1925 at the height of Prohibition, the era during which this story is set and which is depicted with accuracy and lavish detail by the author. A few pages into this book and you will hear the rattle of a Tommy gun, the throaty roar of a Model T down-shifting as it careens around the corner making its getaway and, last but not least, smell the booze being dispensed from hundreds of local speakeasies in blatant contravention of the Volstead Act. So hop up on the running board and hold on tight, you're in for one wild and entertaining ride!
Frank Hearn is just an ordinary guy trying to make an honest living. Well, as least as honest a living as is possible for a bootlegger in Asbury Park, New Jersey during the roaring Twenties. Set to make a big score on a shipment of top-shelf hooch, Hearn is double-crossed and his booze is hijacked. Frank finds the mug that set him up but it's too late to get either his liquor or his money back. What he does get, however, is an IOU for $7,000 in gambling debts signed by none other than the great Babe Ruth himself. With his prospects looking pretty dim up North, Hearn decides to make the trek to St. Petersburg, Florida where the mighty Yankees are set to begin spring training. There he hopes to brace the Babe and force the slugger to pay up before Frank goes public with the story. Along the way Hearn hooks up with ex-torch singer Ginger DeMore, a dame with curves in all the right places and the guts to use the gun she packs in one of the few places she has that doesn't curve.
7,000 CLAMS is both entertaining and evocative. Irby's guys and molls not only talk the talk but they walk the walk as well. Most impressive is the manner in which the author subtly portrays the schizophrenia of the era - a façade of morality and law and order covering a situation rapidly deteriorating into anarchy and lawlessness. Portrayed here is a country of seemingly limitless possibility but one which is at the same time beset by a palpable sense of desperation. Those larger cultural issues of the day are deftly reflected in the chaotic personal lives of the characters in this story. All of those elements more than make up for the places in this novel where the plot - which takes a long time to get rolling in the first place - nearly grinds to a halt.
That being said, anyone looking for a good, old fashioned hardboiled story set in an era when the men did what they had to do to get by and the women were as dangerous as they were glamorous willenjoy this novel. Irby expresses a special interest in the 1920's. The quality of his stylish first effort -a few minor blemishes notwithstanding - should leave most readers hoping that he will return again to that same era in subsequent books.
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By the way, the Yankees took all five from the Red Sox at Fenway this weekend ... shades of 1978!!!!
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