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The Chicago Way

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From the co-creator and executive producer of the television show Cold Case Files, a fast-paced, stylish murder mystery featuring a tough-talking Irish cop turned private investigator who does for the city of Chicago what Elmore Leonard did for Detroit and Raymond Chandler did for Los Angeles.

Chicago private investigator Michael Kelly is hired by his former partner, John Gibbons, to help solve an eight-year-old rape and battery case, a case it turns out his old friend was once ordered to forget. When Gibbons turns up dead on Navy Pier, Kelly enlists a team of his savviest colleagues to connect the dots between the recent murder and the cold case it revived: Diane Lindsay, a television reporter whose relationship with Kelly is not strictly professional; his best friend from childhood, Nicole Andrews, a forensic DNA expert; Nicole’s boyfriend, Vince Rodriguez, a detective with a special interest in rape cases; and Bennett Davis from the DA’s office, a friend since Kelly’s days on the force. To close the case, Kelly will have to face the mob, a serial killer, his own double-crossing friends, and the mean streets of the city he loves.

Ferociously plotted and crackling with wit, The Chicago Way is first-rate suspense steeped in the glorious, gritty atmosphere of a great city: a marvelous debut.Amazon Significant Seven, August 2007: Michael Harvey’s gritty debut, The Chicago Way, rips the classic crime novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett from their 30s origins and slams them like a brass fist into the teeth of modern-day Chicago. All of the pieces are here: Chandler’s Byzantine plots and tack-sharp dialogue; a smorgasbord of knuckle sandwiches to sate the die-hard Hammett fan; and a damaged dame (platinum blonde, natch), straight out of a James Cain roadside diner. Seemingly destined for noir greatness, The Chicago Way both respects its gnarled roots and catapults hardboiled crime fiction into a new century. –Jon Foro

P.I. Michael Kelly’s Chicago
So where does a detective go to quench his thirst in the Windy City? The author offers Kelly’s top five places to get a pint.

1. The Hidden Shamrock, 2723 North Halsted Street
Best pint of Guinness in the city. Besides, Kelly knows the owners.

2. Celtic Crossings, 751 North Clark Street
A print of James Joyce’s death mask hangs in a frame behind the bar. Around closing, it’s the liveliest-looking thing in the place.

3. Billy Goat Tavern, 430 North Michigan Avenue, Lower Level
A Chicago legend. And a good place to eavesdrop on the ink-stained wretches that make a living out of other people’s misfortune, also known as newspaper reporters. (Learn more about the Billy Goat when Kelly drops in for a drink in his second novel, due out in 2008.)

4. Hopleaf Bar, 5148 North Clark Street
Beer in three hundred different flavors. Need we say more?

5. Coq D’Or inside the Drake Hotel, 140 East Walton Place
Old school Chicago. Order an Executive Martini, made with eight ice cubes and poured from a brandy snifter. Then find yourself a cab home.

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3 thoughts on “The Chicago Way

  1. Fast Paced Thriller Set in the Windy City Having read The Third Rail, The Fifth Floor and now The Chicago Way (reverse order), this was the third novel I have read by Michael Harvey and enjoyed this debut the most. The self-depreciating humor he adds to the dialogue reminds me a bit of the style that David Rosenfelt used in the Andy Carpenter series.While Harvey is not my favorite author, The Chicago Way is a quick and engaging thriller debut that kept me flipping pages from beginning to end.Cubs fan, Michael…

  2. A Good Who-Done-It While in agreement with some other reviewers that this isn’t “the greatest story ever told”, in my view, among all those “who done its” out there, this book was as good as many, especially so being the author’s first novel.It’s a Spenser-like (Robert Parker beginning and a fast moving pace. The main character is a former Chicago police officer, turned detective, who is contacted by a long-ago associate from the police force. The contact is murdered suddenly. The story takes off…

  3. Modern-day Greek tragedy complete with the Furies Private investigator Michael Kelley lives his life guided by the ideas of the ancient Greeks, whose works he reads in the original Greek. This is an interesting trait for an Irish ex-cop with a talent for fighting.Kelley’s client in this story is him ex-partner, retired cop John Gibbons. After John gets shot dead, Kelley inherits Gibbon’s last client – a woman who wants her rapist found. She packs a gun and is one tough cookie. She’s not the only piece-packing Fury in the plot…

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