{"id":13233,"date":"2020-01-07T19:18:06","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T00:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13233"},"modified":"2020-01-07T19:18:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T00:18:06","slug":"crimes-of-the-levee-by-john-sturgeon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=13233","title":{"rendered":"‘Crimes of the Levee,’ by John Sturgeon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It seems to me<\/strong> one of the tragedies of our current literary situation (which I pray is transitional) that authors who have something to say and good author\u2019s instincts often lack the \u201cschool of hard knocks\u201d experience and editorial hoop-jumping that forced us old guys to learn our craft. John Sturgeon, author of Crimes of the Levee<\/a><\/em>, strikes me as having that problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crimes of the Levee <\/em>is set in Chicago in 1905. \u201cThe Levee\u201d is a vice district, where prostitution, gambling, and drug use are endemic (some of these things, like prostitution, are actually legal). Patrick Moses is a police detective who works there. He is a practicing Catholic, but embittered by the deaths of his wife and children. His chief friends are the prostitute he dates; his partner, a German-American named Gunter; and the priest who was his father figure when he was growing up in an orphanage. But he keeps them at a distance. When the pain gets too great, he drinks or uses opium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and Gunter are public heroes as the book starts. They arrested\nSimon Kluge, a serial killer who has just been executed. Now they are asked to\nhunt for a missing woman \u2013 the niece of the Italian ambassador, who is rumored\nto have been kidnapped by white slavers and put to work in the Levee. At about\nthe same time, fabled merchant Marshall Field summons Patrick personally,\nasking him to investigate the death of his son. Supposedly, Marshall Field, Jr.\nshot himself while cleaning his gun, but the father doubts that story. To his\npuzzlement, Patrick finds that the old man himself seems to have organized the\ncover-up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To top it all off, women are being murdered again, in the\nvery same way Simon Kluge killed his victims. Was the wrong man executed? Or did\nKluge have an accomplice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crimes of the Levee<\/em>, taken as a story, is a pretty good \u201cmean streets\u201d sort of tale. There\u2019s a good sense of place and atmosphere. However, I had trouble figuring out the story\u2019s final resolution \u2013 I think I may have puzzled it out, but it seemed to me too subtle by half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But my big problem with the book was the writing itself. Author Sturgeon has problems with basic spelling and punctuation \u2013 he has trouble with verb tenses. He uses question marks where they\u2019re not wanted and leaves them out where they are. He employs redundancies, as in this passage: \u201cThis Sunday, I had hoped for rest, peace, and quiet. What I got was conflict, and this took away from everything else.\u201d<\/em> He confuses homophones, such as \u201cvial\u201d for \u201cvile.\u201d At one point the hero breaks an arm, but the author barely considers the problems that would create for a man living alone \u2013 such as in tying a necktie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author seems to have done a fair amount of research for\nthis book, but some subtleties pass him by \u2013 for instance, he doesn\u2019t seem to\nknow that, up until the 1970s, unmarried women were addressed as Miss and\nmarried women as Mrs. He uses \u201cMs.,\u201d which in those days was nothing more than\na regional mispronunciation. And the diction was generally was too modern, something\nthat diminished the atmosphere for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, this was a pretty non-objectionable book considering\nits subject matter, and there are no digs at Christianity. I recommend it\nconditionally, with my criticisms in mind. I probably won\u2019t read the next book\nin the series, though I\u2019ll admit I am mildly curious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems to me one of the tragedies of our current literary situation (which I pray is transitional) that authors who have something to say and good author\u2019s instincts often lack the \u201cschool of hard knocks\u201d experience and editorial hoop-jumping that forced us old guys to learn our craft. John Sturgeon, author of Crimes of … Continue reading ‘Crimes of the Levee,’ by John Sturgeon<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[593,1485,2149],"class_list":["post-13233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-crimes-of-the-levee","tag-john-sturgeon","tag-patrick-moses"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}