A very good book with well-thought-out characters and a story that felt like I was reading a black-and-white movie only on the pages. I could relate to so much growing up around trains in my small town and having a father who was a WWII vet and sitting in the corner listening to these old men and their stories. A good who done it with really good characters that each one has some character issues along the way. A really good read.

City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton-Both the area and the era took me through some fabulous childhood memories of visiting the uncles and the stories they’d share with my father. He was also a WWII vet and shared the ‘pulling yourself up by the bootstrap’ work ethic. So was this main character, Gene Hammons. The story was well-researched and well-written. The characters were complex, human, flawed yet believable. The crime-whodunnit mystery was mesmerizing from page one! 5-star read.

It reminded me of a old school detective noir movie. It has everything from corruption to murder.

You know the movie that plays in your head while you read? This is a book you’ll be watching in black & white. Dark city streets, Packards driven by men in fedoras & plenty of cigarette smoke….all of this transports you to 1930’s Phoenix. It’s like many American towns…..reeling from the Great Depression & not even able to (legally) drown its sorrows due to Prohibition.

It’s in this setting we meet brothers Gene & Don Hammons. Both are veterans of the Great War who returned & joined the Phoenix Police Department. But any similarities end there. To get a sense of their relationship dynamic, think Cain & Abel or maybe Noel & Liam.

Gene rose quickly through the ranks & was a well respected detective before being forced out after he stood up for a woman framed for murder. His innate sense of right vs wrong meant he couldn’t go along to get along in a department riddled with corruption. So now he ekes out a living as a P.I. His days are spent looking for missing persons & catching up with girlfriend Victoria Vasquez, a news photographer.

Don resented Gene’s success & skills as a detective. Fortunately, he’s never been burdened by ethics & welcomes the little perks that come with being on the job. He never misses an opportunity to sneer at Gene’s moral code. So it’s more than a bit surprising when he reaches out to help his little brother.

It all begins with a body. A pretty young blond is found by the train tracks & there are a couple of things immediately wrong with this picture. First, she’s in pieces…literally. Second, the only thing in her handbag is Gene’s business card. Fortunately, Don was at the scene & the card quickly makes its way back to Gene who’s stumped. Was the woman planning to hire him? Or was he being set up to take the fall?

Identifying the woman proves a challenge. Local politicians worried about bad PR are keen for the cops to move on & with no new leads, the case is quietly shelved. But Gene can’t let it go. He begins to dig into the mysterious young woman’s past, a decision that puts him & Victoria in danger.

Settle in for a dark & twisty tale that is richly evocative of the era. It’s a time of rampant poverty, Depression camps, dirty politicians & corrupt cops. The mob is spreading west like a fungus & no one is immune. There’s a definite noir vibe to the narrative but the style of prose & Gene’s character prevent it from sliding into pulp territory.

Yes, he’s a PI in the 1930’s but that’s where any similarity to his hardboiled counterparts ends (although he may argue that Victoria qualifies as a femme fatale…). Instead of a swaggering, tough talking collector of dames (that would be Don), Gene is a quiet man haunted by what he experienced during the war. Today he’s be diagnosed with PTSD but the best they had then was shell-shock, a mildly derogatory term implying weakness. As a consequence, he is startled by loud noises & frequently takes little mental side trips down memory lane. As he recalls these vignettes from his past, we get a better understanding of his relationship with Don & how they grew so far apart. He’s a deep thinker with a spirituality he clings to as his last hope for redemption.

In terms of pace & direction, it reminded me of The Searcher by Tana French. It’s a literary PI story that is more about the people than the crime. It moves along at a steady speed that allows you to enjoy the descriptive prose & get to know the characters. Tension builds slowly until you reach a place where you’re afraid to turn the page, sure there’s going to be an “oh crap” moment right around the corner. That continues to the last few pages when all pieces finally slide into place.

It’s a dark, immersive read with a sympathetic MC you’ll quietly root for. BTW, thumbs up to those responsible for the beautiful cover art.

I just didn't connect with this one. There is a lot of historical information that is interesting but often seemed to me to distract from the overall story more than it informed it. Almost like too much attention to minor or insignificant details and the flow of the narrative suffered for it.

The best way I can put is that, while it isn't boring or dull, this is a very easy book to put down. You just never get any kind of intense, what's going to happen next sensation. Not a bad book just not a good fit for this reader.

Lots of period correct stuff - racial slurs and things of that nature - that will likely offend more sensitive readers (there's a warning at the beginning of the book so there's no excuse for not being prepared for it).

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley.

3.5 stars

A gritty & dark Depression-era murder mystery with deep layers of corruption, organized crime, & racism shadowing the centerpiece of a brutal killing. Detailed & decently written, this story grew on me as I got to know the complex characters.

[What I liked:]

•The writer really captured the flaws & depravity of humanity side-by-side with real compassion & empathy. I appreciate how the MC is a realist & street smart, sometimes feels pulled in different directions in morally gray situations, but always has a bit of empathy even for those he dislikes.

•There are some great characters in here: cocky young bootlegger Marley, preacher & crime boss Cleveland, the MC’s drug addict police detective older brother, talented crime scene photographer Victoria, the shady Frenchy Navarre, etc. All the minor characters felt unique & were skillfully drawn as well, & there are a lot of side & minor characters in this book.

•The historical setting is extremely well done. Both the knowledge of the locales of Phoenix & the surrounding areas (landscape, architecture, local history, etc.), & the historical minutiae of police work & migrant camps & race relations & organized crime in the Depression-era Southwest US were convincingly detailed in a way that gave a strong sense of time & place without bogging down the narrative.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•Every time a new character is introduced we immediately get a page of their backstory & family history. It often pulled me out of the flow of the narrative. This was mainly an issue towards the beginning, when many new characters popped up one after another.

•Some of the dialogue is wordy & doesn’t flow, mainly towards the beginning of the book (where some info dumping was happening via lengthy conversations).

•I’m not really sure why the strangler case from 1929 was embedded in the middle of this story. It was interesting & well written, & did give background on the characters, but honestly it felt like it could’ve been it’s own novel.

•I was a bit disappointed by the ending. Why did the murderer show up & suddenly confess? That felt out of the blue & unsatisfying. I also felt like where the MC’s romantic relationship was left was a loose end—no resolution, but also why did it need to take a downturn right before the end & just be left to dangle?

CW: use of anti-Semitic & racial slurs (including the “n” word), mistreatment of & violence towards homeless people, drug use, infidelity, racism, murder, dismembered corpses, r*pe, substance abuse, physical assault

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

Jon Talton is the author of 13 novels and one work of history.

His work has been widely praised by the critics. The Washington Post BookWorld said Concrete Desert is “more intelligent and rewarding than most contemporary mysteries.” In a starred review, Booklist called it “a stunning debut.” The Chicago Tribune lauded Camelback Falls for its “twisty and crafty” plot. For Dry Heat, Publishers Weekly wrote, “Taut prose helps tighten the screws, and the winning, sensitive portrayal of the Mapstones ¬– both of them a relief after too many hard-nosed PIs who are all gristle and no brain – lends credibility to the noirish narrative." Best-selling author Don Winslow called Talton one of America's "extremely talented but under-recognized" authors.

Jon is also a veteran journalist. He is the economics columnist for the Seattle Times and is editor and publisher of the blog Rogue Columnist.

For more than 25 years Jon has covered business and finance, specializing in urban economies, energy, real estate and economics and public policy. Jon has been a columnist for the Arizona Republic, Charlotte Observer and Rocky Mountain News, and his columns have appeared in newspapers throughout North America on the New York Times News Service and other news services. Jon has been a regular guest on CNBC.

Jon served as business editor for several newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News, Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Enquirer and Charlotte Observer. At Dayton, he was part of a team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service, for the nation’s first computer-assisted report on worker safety. In Charlotte, the business section was honored as one of the nation’s best by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Among the stories he has covered are the landmark Texaco-Pennzoil trial; the collapse of energy prices in the 1980s; the troubles of General Motors and the American auto industry; the big bank mergers of the ‘90s, and America’s downtown renaissance. He was a Knight Western Fellow in Journalism at the University of Southern California and a community fellow at the Morrison Institute at Arizona State University.

Before journalism, he worked for four years as an ambulance medic in the inner city of Phoenix. He also was an instructor in theater at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

Phoenix, 1933:

Great War veteran and rising star Gene Hammons lost his job as a homicide detective when he tried to prove that a woman was wrongly convicted of murder to protect a well-connected man. Now a private investigator, Hammons makes his living looking for missing persons—a plentiful caseload during the Great Depression, when people seem to disappear all the time.

Hammons' brother, also a homicide detective, is called to investigate when a young woman's body is found beside the railroad tracks. She has been dismembered. Local law enforcement has ruled it as an accident .. according to them, she may have been drinking and fallen onto the tracks.

But Hammons thinks it's the work of a serial killer from a few years back. Finding his business card in her purse leads Hammon into further looking for the woman's identity ... with the help of his brother.

What Hammons discovers is that the woman had many secrets ... and the case is connected to some of Phoenix's most powerful players .. on both sides of the law.

This is an extremely well-written historical crime fiction buried in the history of Arizona. The author, himself, is from the area and he has done a terrific job in bringing Phoenix to light from that era. Barry Goldwater, Nominee for President in 1964 is mentioned as well as others of that ilk. The schools, the landmarks, and I do believe this story was taken from real life events during that time.

The characters are well-known and those that aren't are solidly defined. Everything meshes. There is suspense from the first page leading to an unexpected ending with twists and turns in between.

Many thanks to the author / Poisoned Pen Press / Netgalley for the digital copy of this most interesting crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

4.5 STARS

City of Dark Corners is an absolute gold mine of Phoenix history, but that's not the only reason to read it. (Although I will say that anyone who thinks that it's too hot for anything to happen here needs to think again.) Readers will also get a good feeling for life during the Depression. For one thing, it never occurred to me that there would be a lot of missing persons during this time, and I felt about as smart as a box of rocks when Talton explained this to me.

The mystery is a good one, too, which is something that I always expect from Jon Talton, and it has a noir feel that some readers are going to love. If you're not a noir fan, don't roll your eyes and move along. I said a noir "feel"-- a bit like using margarine instead of butter.

As with any mystery worth its salt, there have to be characters that keep my interest, and City of Dark Corners has them. Besides the City of Phoenix, which is a character in and of itself, there is Gene Hammons, the World War I veteran, a former police detective who was Amelia Earhart's bodyguard when she was in town, and now private eye who sings in a church choir to help keep him sane. His love interest, Victoria Vasquez, is a strong, interesting character, too. She's a photographer who often takes crime scene photos for the police department, but she's working toward a career in photojournalism like Margaret Bourke-White's.

If you're in the mood for a historical mystery that's a bit gritty, a puzzler to solve, and has two strong characters, City of Dark Corners may be just the thing for you. I'm hoping that it's the start of a brand-new series. If you don't go in for historicals, try Talton's David Mapstone mysteries. They are first-rate.

City of Dark Corners by Jon Talton
Rating: 5 stars

Summary: Gene Hammons is a down on his luck PI in the new city of Phoenix. He was a former rising star in the Phoenix police department. With ties still strong with the police he is asked about a dismembered women found in a dirty rail yard. Hammons has got demons from the war and is a guy who won’t stop looking for justice in a corrupt city.

Comments: An old school detective police procedural. Hammons is a great character that kept me reading. Not much crime fiction in Phoenix but this is great mid century historical crime novel. Read it.

The horrific death of a beautiful young college coed that takes place in the burgeoning city of Phoenix, Arizona during the spring of 1933 is the focus of a dandy new novel that’s written in the best pulp fiction traditions of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Jon Talton, features an honorable, smart and much respected Phoenix PD homicide detective who’s turned private investigator after refusing to give false testimony in a controversial murder case that sent a woman to death row. His name is Gene Hammons.

As the story begins, Gene Hammons is picked up by his brother Don—also a police detective, but one with a tarnished character—and taken to the scene of a gruesome, and strange death. It’s where the body of an unidentified young and pretty woman was found dismembered, alongside the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad . . . the line that operates the famed Sunset Limited, luxury Pullman Car service to California. The cops are calling it ‘suspicious’ at first and theorize that the woman fell from the train and was cut into pieces by the wheels. The police detectives want a quick solution and a fast closure of the case, but Hammons can tell at a glance that she was murdered, because there’s no blood on the tracks. The case takes on a sinister twist a moment later when Don, the Phoenix cop, surreptitiously passes his brother Gene, one of the PI’s own business cards, which he found in the woman’s purse . . . and stole to protect his brother. And so begins Private Eye Gene Hammons’s fight to solve the heinous murder and keep himself out of prison. It’s a crime no one—not the well connected, nor the criminal class want solved—and one of the best Depression-era crime capers since Sam Spade tried to hunt down the Maltese Falcon!

Gene Hammons is no longer on the Phoenix police force = he's ekeing out a living as a PI- but his brother Don is and it's Don who reaches out to him when there's a bizarre murder, A young woman, dressed all in pink, is found in pieces alongside the railroad tracks; she has Gene's business card in her purse. Given his poor relations with his former colleagues, Gene knows he's going to be a suspect but he's also intrigued by the case on its own merits. His search for answers takes him through a panoply of characters and types who I'm sure are familiar to those wo live in Phoenix. For me, who's never been there, this had great period atmospherics. Thanks to Netgalley for the arc. Good characters (I also like Gene's love interest Victoria) and a twisty mystery combined with taut writing make it a good read.

What can I say... I have a love of historical noir that makes me read any and all novels that come my way. City of Dark Corners was a fantastic fast paced read, that kept me trying to figure out the culprit until the end.
I was hooked from the first page, and as the novel progressed I realized i was flying through the pages at lightning speed. The characters have depth and are well written, the historical depiction of America during the depression/prohibition was spellbinding.

Loved every second of it and will be looking for more from the author and will be recommending.

Rat-a-tat prose, robust storytelling and reliable authenticity of period detail punctuate this standout new novel of 1933 Phoenix, and small wonder that its author, Jon Talton, is a Phoenix native and veteran news journalist. He makes sterling use of real-life figures and incidents of the time, and that lifts CITY OF DARK CORNERS comfortably above its formulaic cop-turned-private-detective tale. Beyond the zingy writing, the novel's greatest pleasures come in the canny appropriation of such Phoenix icons and rapscallions as Barry Goldwater, Harry Rosenzweig, Frenchy Navarre, Kemper Marley, Gus Greenbaum and a host of others. CIRY OF DARK CORNERS is a love letter to Phoenix and Phoenicians, but as someone from somewhere else who knew little of the place coming in, I felt fully welcomed into this collection of colorful Arizona lore. Even with its heavy use of detective-fiction tropes in this male-haunted-by-dead-girl story, this hardboiled novel is a winner.

City of Dark Corners is listed as a David Mapstone mystery by Jon Talton, but don't be sad that David himself isn't in the story. The Mapstone name does appear. This book is set in 1933 and we get to follow Gene Hammons, ex detective on the Phoenix police force. This is a dark and brutal time in Arizona and I love the language and description that Talton has accomplished. I discovered this series a couple of years ago and found it marvellous. The author is great at describing the setting like few others and the characters are great. I must thank @poisonedpenpress @sourcebooks and @netgalley for giving me this great advance copy

"He's a smart cop......Dangerous smart."

That just about describes P.I. Gene Hammons, former member of the Hat Squad of Phoenix, Arizona until the boss pulled strings and had him evicted from the police force. Hammons got a little too close to the flame of outing someone that they threw the book at who was actually innocent. Can't have that happening when the ink isn't even dry on the set-up of "Guilty".

Hammons licks his wounds and opens his own investigative office. It's 1933 and the Great Depression has turned the country into massive bread lines etched with the faces of the unemployed. The copper mines have closed around Phoenix and the homeless live in tents and abandoned old cars. People go missing and someone has to find them.

Hammons' older brother, Don, still remains on the force. He and Gene have been competitive since birth with Gene lying about his age to join the Army in WW I like Don. But they still look out for one another. Don is painfully aware of Gene's bloodhound skills and calls him out secretly to a bizarre murder scene. A young woman's body lays near the railroad tracks. In fact, her decapitated body is found in segments along the tracks. The police are claiming suicide from jumping off the train. Gene is convinced that our gal was no jumper.

Wowzers! Jon Talton creates a panoramic view of life in Art Decco back in Phoenix. The dialogue is sharp-ended with people looking at the world through smug and tilted visions of the times. Gene is pretty much a straight arrow in love with Victoria Vasquez, a news/crime photographer. Victoria takes a big bite out of life. Hope that Talton keeps Victoria front and center in the next one.

The storyline is a creative one with Hammons hitting the pavement with intensity. We're introduced to some shifty characters and alleys that lead to countless dead ends. But Talton's character of Gene Hammons is a man shaped by his experiences of war, questionable cops, unspeakable crimes, and treacherous individuals who will stop at nothing during a time when nothing is what average folks had. Don't miss this one. Raw, gritty, and reflective of the underbelly of crimes against the vulnerable. And Hammons doesn't sleep........

"City of dark corners" is a smoothly written whodunit full of unexpected twists, a very suspenseful noir full of unease, dread, blood & body parts.....

It's 1933, and Eugene "Gene " Hammons, an ex WWI veteran & former detective from the Phoenix Police Department working now as a private investigator, stumbles into a gruesome murder that will take him on a journey through a world peopled with violent mobsters, corrupt city officials & dirty cops.

Mixing fictional and nonfictional characters, John Talton takes us into a nightmarish voyage straight into the social violence of the Great Depression. I particularly loved the descriptions of Phoenix & its surroundings at the tail end of the prohibition era. This is a great piece of historical fiction. Bravo!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Poison Pen for the opportunity to read this wonderful novel prior to its release date

This book will take you back to Phoenix during the early years of the Depression. It is filled with atmospheric background, a gruesome murder of a beautiful young girl, and an ex-policeman turned private eye who refuses to give up. Corrupt cops, bootleggers, speakeasies, the mob and even iconic Barry Goldwater as a young man. This narrative will immerse you in history along with an exceptional mystery.

Place this one on your to-read list. Did I mention the ending.....