The Last Book I Read

It's always nice to become reacquainted with some old friends, even fictional ones. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was a fan of Michael Z. Lewin's series of detective novels featuring Albert Samson most of which came out back in the eighties. Unbeknown to me, Samson returned a few years ago after a long layoff in Eye Opener, which is a worthy successor to the earlier books. What I like about Samson is how grounded he is in a reality that is very familiar to me, unlike more famous fictional P.I.'s whose adventures are more fantastical. At the heart of Samson's appeal (for me, at any rate) is the key role played by his relationship to the city of Indianapolis. The sense of place, and its importance in shaping the identity of not only the main character, but most of the supporting cast is really striking. This is not a case of playing on the glamor of a New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles or some other typical mystery setting. It's acknowledging the largely mundane, largely parochial, largely working class features of a city that breeds the kind of crime that grows out of individual desperation, petty greed, and something akin to institutional municipal corruption. That's not to say they aren't indicative of bigger issues that unfortunately define too much of "middle" America: in this case, a nascent racism that lingers just below the surface of supposed civic leadership. Lewin, through the cases he writes for Samson, allows his reader to engage such issues on a human scale that promotes some degree of optimism that individual perception, empathy, and compassion may have a realistic chance of reducing the corrosive effects such acts or attitudes can have on a community. But it's no sure thing, as Samson (as in many of the earlier stories) resolves the immediate case only to realize that he is engaged oin an ongoing, longterm battle to preserve the best elements of his hometown. Samson's Indianapolis reminds me a lot of my hometown of Buffalo, and that no doubt affects my positive take on his work. But I suspect any mystery fan would find this an entertaining read, if not exactly in the class of a Hammett or Chandler.