Tag Archives: Danny R. Smith

‘Echo Killers,’ by Danny R. Smith

A pair of armed robbers, one big, the other small, knock over a store in the rough Compton neighborhood of Los Angeles. The owner refuses to report the crime, but a little boy tells the cops.

The same pair (apparently) hit another store shortly thereafter, killing a well-liked storekeeper and a wino on the sidewalk.

In Danny R. Smith’s Echo Killers, Detective “Dickie” Jones has a new partner – a feisty Latino woman named Josie – and they join the hunt for a team of outlaws who mirror themselves, in a way – a big Anglo and a Latina. We learn the story of these two outlaws, too. They are Army deserters, and the woman doesn’t know she’s still being hunted by an officer she spent a night with once. Their almost star-crossed story bears the marks of tragedy, as the two hurtle toward one another on a fatalistic trajectory.

This is the third volume in Smith’s “Dickie Floyd” series. “Dickie” and “Floyd” haven’t actually been partners since the end of the first book, but they keep gravitating together. Their personal bond is a tight one. The book’s mood is somber, but the ending is rather sublime – an affirmation of what Luther would have called the policeman’s “vocation.” Another book is coming, according to Amazon.

I liked Echo Killers it a lot. Cautions for foul language, cop humor, and intense situations.

‘Door to a Dark Room,’ by Danny R. Smith

Book two in the “Dickie Floyd” police procedural series (make sure to read them in order; author Danny R. Smith routinely spoils the previous book each time out), set in Los Angeles, finds Detective Richard “Dickie” Jones returning to the job after six months. He got shot in the last book, and has been recovering both physically and psychologically. When Door to a Dark Room begins, his wife has left him, and his partner, Martin “Pretty Boy Floyd” Tyler, has been teamed with someone else. As Dickie eases back into the schedule, he’s assigned to the Cold Case Unit. Until something more compelling comes up.

In the wealthy, secure city of Santa Clarita, a woman realtor disappears. When her car is found, there’s a body in it – but they’re not sure it’s hers, as the head and hands have been removed. And her husband seems strangely impassive about the whole business.

Meanwhile, Dickie’s cop instinct is telling him he’s being watched. Soon he becomes convinced a man in a car is staking out his apartment. He keeps quiet about it at first, not sure whether his PTSD has made him paranoid.

In the end, the various investigations converge (I wonder how often that happens in real life – probably not as much as in fiction), and the cops begin moving in on a depraved killer who is not all that smart, but has remarkable animal cunning.

I’m growing fonder of the Dickie Floyd novels. They’re not as accomplished as other series I could name, but they have much to teach us. Author Smith is a former detective, and the real heart of these books is a sort of apologia for good cops – that they shouldn’t be judged by their crude jokes, but by the things they do. And that they’re under considerable psychological pressures, pressures that would destroy most people, and which often destroy them. A little like Joseph Wambaugh, without the despair.

Cautions for lots of profanity, and deeply disturbing crime situations. Recommended, if you can handle it.

‘A Good Bunch of Men,’ by Danny R. Smith

A book that didn’t grab me at first, but pulled me in as it went on. That’s A Good Bunch of Men, by Danny R. Smith. Smith is a former police detective himself, so authenticity is his strong suit.

A Good Bunch of Men is the first book in the “Dickie Floyd” series. Dickie Floyd is not the name of the main character, but the corporate name of a near-legendary detective team in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. They are Richard “Dickie” Jones, and Matthew “Pretty Boy Floyd” Tyler. Although there’s a mystery to be solved, A Good Bunch of Men is more than anything else a book about a relationship, about how two guys relate as friends and partners in extreme circumstances.

When a transsexual prostitute is found murdered in an alley, the Dickie Floyd team catches the case. When another prostitute of the same sort is found murdered nearby, they begin looking for a serial killer. But the victims’ associates have secrets, and other cops on the case aren’t working very hard. The team will wreck a couple of cars and get into a couple gunfights before the case is closed – explosively.

It’s notable that, although the two detectives make plenty of cracks about the murder victim, “her” lifestyle and her job, that doesn’t affect their investigation at all. The victim was a human being who didn’t deserve to die, and they are determined to get her justice like anyone else. I think that’s precisely the proper attitude.

Also, Dickie wears a fedora hat, which always deserves respect.

I didn’t know what to make of A Good Bunch of Men at first. The trick was in understanding Dickie’s and Floyd’s relationship – the way they talked to each other at first, I thought they were mortal enemies. Turns out it was just cop banter. We know cop banter from any number of novels by Wambaugh, Connelly, etc. – but here it is (I think) more realistic and concentrated. We gradually realize that talking trash is a psychological mechanism cops use for survival. If you think of all those dark stories you’ve heard in your life – the kind that keep you awake and night and make you doubt your faith in God – these guys live those stories. They see that stuff in person. Strong measures are necessary to keep one’s sanity, and those methods look ugly to outsiders.

The cop banter here isn’t as witty as what we get in other books. It’s cruder and less witty. But as I got to know these guys better, I got interested in them. Danny R. Smith hasn’t mastered storytelling yet, and but he shows great promise, and I’ve bought the next book in the series.

Cautions for disturbing material and obscene language.