Border City Blues

May 15, 2013
April 1919. Jack McCloskey, a WWI veteran, comes home to Windsor, Ontario. Aimless, still trying to shake off the horrors of the war, he drifts into competitive boxing, eventually hooking up with a promoter who is a small-time bootlegger with eyes on expanding his operation. Jack becomes one of the bootlegger's soldiers. Complications ensue, as Jack's father and brother are also bootleggers and have become a nuisance to Jack's boss, encroaching on his territory. When Jack discovers that his relatives have been murdered, he sets out to determine if his boss was responsible. This is a gritty, stylishly written novel. It has a Boardwalk Empire feel, and the story itself, which finds Jack searching for a killer and accidentally finding out some things about himself, isif not blindingly originaldramatic and occasionally moving. It's the author's first novel, but readers will hope it isn't his last.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)