Suspenseful and gritty crime story. I liked this book, but I didn't feel that it lived up to the reviews I read early on. Still, it's wort a read.

Canaryville is the latest from Charlie Newton, set in his native Chicago birthplace. It is a busy story with an intense, pulsating narrative that evokes the south side Irish, former livestock slaughterhouse darkness. Full of action with a double homicide, bomb blast and city ready to explode, it’s up to detective Denny Banahan to stop the potential explosion of violence. Despite its tantalising premise, Canaryville was disappointing and so only a two-star rating. With thanks to NetGalley and the author for a preview copy for review purposes. All opinions expressed herein are freely given and totally my own.

Fasten your seatbelts, readers, Canaryville is going to be a bumpy ride: likely as not among the bumpiest you’ve encountered. For lovers of noir fiction, that’s a good thing – actually, the best thing, and Canaryville is among the best of the modern noir genre. It goes straight to 11 on page one and keeps going up from there. By the last page you’ll be wrung out, strung out, breathless – and feeling, withal, thoroughly entertained by what Newton puts you through. Actually, categorizing this as “noir” is not wholly accurate nor does the term do it justice; truth is, Newton’s tale defies categorization; the author is sui generis in his style and ability to tell a fast-past story of murder, mayhem, racial conflict, police procedural and Irish American tribalism and tragedy in the Windy City. For the uninitated, Canaryville is a working class predominantly Irish American neighborhood in Chicago, long known if not downright infamous for the tough guys and equally tough dames it has produced over its long and often violent but never uninteresting history. It is properly regarded as a Chicago analog to New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, except whereas the latter has fully gentrified even to the point of changing its name (to “The Clinton”). and the Westies, the homicidal Irish American gang that once terrorized its streets, have long since been eradicated, Canaryville retains what may euphemistically be characterized as its “colorful” character. It is, in this respect, both a relic of the past and a relict of American urban demography. Home to cops, criminals, and city workers of every stripe, it’s one of those neighborhoods where, if you’re an outsider and you walk into a pub where you’re not known. not accompanied by one of the locals, and you don’t have face like a roadmap of Ireland, the boyos at the bar stop talking and turn to look at you with expressions that might rightly be interpreted as unfriendly if not downright menacing. The main protagonist of the novel, Lt. Denny Banahan, a long-serving (and, needless to say, long suffering) Chicago Police Department detective, is a product of this milieu, a true son of Canaryville with all that implies in terms of the manifold virtues and flaws of his character. Mostly in the course of a single day – two days, as it happens, before Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day parade – his virtues and flaws are made manifest as he attempts to deal with, in no particular order: a looming race war with restive blacks from an inner city neighborhood that fate, in its most trickster of guises, positioned next to Canaryville; Ulster Protestant terrorists intent on bringing Ireland’s “Troubles” to the Canaryville’s environs; Irish Catholic gangsters and all-around thugs who make the aforementioned Westies look like the punks they actually were; and a red-head Irish beauty to whom Det. Banahan has plighted his troth and whom he must save from a psychopathic assassin who may or may not be in the employ of any of the aforesaid -- and so steeped in evil, and evil accomplishment, as to make Anton Chigurr, the Satanic hitman in Cormac McCarthy’s novel “No Country For Old Men, seem warm and fuzzy by comparison. And that’s not all. But this review has no intention of revealing more about what is really a masterfully conceived and excecuted thriller for fear of denying readers the pleasure of experiencing it themselves as it hurtles toward its explosive and surprising climax.

Charlie Newton marries the writing chops of Elmore Leonard to an over-the-top, gritty thriller sensibility that feels old-fashioned to me, perhaps channeling Alistair MacLean. Last year's Privateers was a hoot to read without transcending its extravagant plot, but now this underrated author has written the standout book of his career. "Canaryville" is at once an ode to an iconic Irish-American suburb of Chicago and a kinetic thriller plucked straight from the headlines. When a bomb massacre occurs in Canaryville, accompanied by lurid killings nearby, the great industrial city is poised on the edge of a new white-black war, and the only one who can track down the killer is police officer Denny Banahan, child of Canaryville and now embroiled in controversy, ready to retire and in love. The author is a master of controlled pell-mell plotting, the huge cast of riveting characters is wonderfully portrayed, and the bleak, black, humorous dialogue enriches every page. Throw in a villain creepy enough to out-creep Hannibal Lecter, and Canaryville is an immersive triumph that must be read in one sitting.

Wow did I want to read this book and enjoy it. I can't say that I did, unfortunately. With our success with "Murder in Canaryville" (a non-fiction book) and such interest in the neighborhood as a result, I thought it was a no-brainer. But I literally can't go on, as I lost interest in the characters and the plot. For me, almost every character was a stereotype -- the local, powerful black priest, the murderer who has to fake emotions, the Irish cop who grew up in the neighborhood he serves, even the strong Irish girlfriend. I wanted to like some of the characters, but I am abandoning the book. There are some outdated terminologies used to describe gangs in the area (real gangs that exist). There are some inaccuracies about things as simple as days on which certain parades are held (so close to the beginning of the book). I can tell the author spent some time in Chicago. He knows the city -- at least part of it. I actually think he's a decent enough writer, as I found the story mostly gripping and kept reading as long as I could. I actually AM going to carry this book, and I am certain I'll be able to sell some books telling the absolute truth. I'm even going to look into his other titles. It was certainly worth it to learn of this author. This book just wasn't for me. I may return to it and finish it, but I have so much to read!

An intense hard read. Full of violence and rising tensions. Reflected during the times. Worth delving into.

Thank you NetGalley for this arc

2 STARS: I hate to give bad reviews, so I guess I will give a mediocre one instead as that's the best I can do do for this book. I was actually looking forward to reading this as the story took place in Chicago, involved cops and was primarily about the Irish in a deeply divided part of the city. Unfortunately, I just could not get interested in the book as I found the story was all over the map . Good idea though.Awash in violent rhetoric, facing a federal takeover of its police department, Chicago is thirty-six hours from imploding into a race war. Canaryville will be the flashpoint—insular, bare- knuckle Irish, and fiercely defensive of what little neighborhood it has left. .