Excellent prose, but I swear I've read this before.

books:


	• The Strangler William Landay Delacorte Press, 2007 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Superb Quality Crime Fiction

If you're a lover of quality crime fiction, if the names Connelly, Pelecanos, Burke or Lehane get you excited, then this novel is for you. I was wowed by Landay's first novel (Mission Flats) and am even more impressed now. The title and the cover do not do justice to the riches contained within, this is a marvelous book.

Some reviewers have complained about the lack of twists, or that the bad guy was revealed early on. This is not a "mystery" book where the object is to keep guessing until the end. This is a crime novel that is as much about the human condition as it is about the crimes, much in the vein of Mystic River, and is guaranteed to move you and make you think about your own life and family.

It's a dark tale, bleak and brutal. But if you want more from your thrillers than a puzzle, if a literate story with depth is what you seek, you will be delighted - sometimes horrified, but thoroughly delighted - with this exemplary novel. It truly represents the best in crime fiction.

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Move Over Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane

My it's refreshing to find a new author in the so-called genre, who writes like an accomplished novelist. William Landay's The Strangler, his second novel (I somehow missed the first but have since acquired it) is a marvellous read. Written with the authority of one who knows the legal world from personal experience, Landay has crafted a story that involves the infamous Boston Strangler. But the book is much more than that. It's about Irish Boston cops; and family; and Boston, a city decaying in the early 1960s. A terrific read, satisfying at multiple levels. Highly recommended.The Strangler

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Compelling Period Drama

Landay deftly meshes together several storylines, each interesting in its own right, to create a moving drama set in 1960's Boston. Suspense, corruption, family, and human frailty all play critical roles throughout.

The characters are real. Members of the Daley family are flawed, yet uniquely noble. The relationships among the Daleys are complex, yet are simple at the same time. Seemingly bound together with an unbreakable amount of strength for no other reason than that they are family.

The 'Strangler' component of the story, while adding to the plot from a historical nature, actually takes a back seat to the threads centered on family and corruption. I consider that to be a positive. By taking the focus of the plot away from the Strangler, Landay is able to add significant depth to the characters and not let historical facts dictate the direction of the story.

Based on this book, many better known authors can learn a thing or two from Mr. Landay about making characters real. I look forward to reading more of his work.

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Perfect enough

Was this a perfect novel? No, nor was it about the perfect crime. The book is perfect enough for me to recommend to others who think for a living and who sometimes just want to relax and be carried along to a jarring conclusion.

The book is set within the context of a family that is tightly bound, and is in one way or another in the business of crime. Some characters are stale but for me this is minor when one contrasts them to the rounded characterizations of those who are more important to the story, or perhaps those who held more appeal for me.

The spark in this author's style was a pleasure to read. Please give me more fabulous thrillers from Mr. Landay.

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Excellent prose, but I swear I've read this before.

THE STRANGLER begins on November 22, 1963. Kennedy has just been assassinated and the Boston Strangler is terrorizing the city. The west side is also going through the pangs of urban renewal.

William Landry alternates between the three Daley brothers. Joe Daley is a police lieutenant with a gambling problem. Michael Daley works for the Attorney General in the eminent domain division. Rick Daley, the most interesting of the lot, is a burglar.

Because of the alternating viewpoints the story never does gain much momentum. Rick and Michael love the same woman, newspaperwoman Amy Ryan. When she is brutally murdered, the attorney general assigns Michael to the Strangler Bureau. In short order, Albert DeSalvo confesses to the murders. The Attorney General jumps at a resolution to the case. None of the Daley boys believe he's guilty. They have their own candidate.

Joe Daley, the police lieutenant, is the most stereotypical of the brothers. Besides being a gambler, he's also a womanizer. You've seen him in dozens of movies and low-rent mystery novels. However, he does try to help the mom and pop store owners who are being decimated (and bullied) by the businessmen running urban renewal. These businessman hire gangsters to speed up the process. Landry throws in a couple of "B" movie thugs, Charlie Capobianco and strong-arm Vinnie Gargano to liven things up. Joe Daley is in debt to these guys. Michael Daley suspects them of murdering Joe Daley Sr., who was killed in the line of duty. It all has to do with the urban renewal scheme. Then there's Brendan Conroy, best friend to Joe. Sr. (Have you heard this one before?) and boyfriend to Margaret the Daley boys' mother. Michael suspects he's in cahoots with the gangsters, and worse yet, that he killed Joe Sr. I almost forgot about Michael's migraines. Funny, they don't bother him when he's fighting for his life during the climax.

Rick Daley and his burglar scenario only come into play when the boys are trying to find the real strangler and in one short diamond theft. Landry offers a candidate, but he insists in the "author's note" that this guy is fictional.

It's a shame that Lawton had to resort to cliche plot and character devices, `cause the guy can really write. Everything flows well and the prose is superior. He also has a praise-worthy novel under his belt, MISSION FLATS, which won the John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Boston, 1963. A city on edge. On street corners, newsboys hawk the shocking headline: KENNEDY IS DEAD. In the city?s underworld, a mob war rages. But what terrifies Bostonians most is the mysterious killer who has already claimed a dozen victims, a murderer whose name is indelibly linked to their city: the Boston Strangler. This is the electrifying backdrop of William Landay?s magnificent new novel, a story of one Irish-American family, a city under siege, and the long shadow cast by the most infamous killer of his day . . .

For the three Daley brothers, sons of a Boston cop, crime is the family business. They are simply on different sides of it. Joe is the eldest, a tough-talking cop whose gambling habits?fast women, slow horses?drag him down into the city?s gangland. Michael is the middle son; a Harvard-educated lawyer working for an ambitious attorney general, he finds himself assigned to the embattled Strangler task force. And Ricky, the devil-may-care youngest son, floats above the fray as an expert burglar?until the Strangler strikes too close to home.

As Joe?s mob debts close in around him . . . and Michael becomes snarled in a murder investigation gone very wrong . . . and Ricky is hunted by both sides of the law, the three brothers?and the women who love them?are forced to take sides. Now each must look deeper into a killer?s murderous rage, into their family?s own lethal secrets, and into the one death that has changed them forever. As William Landay?s complex, compassionate, and terrifying novel builds to a climax, two mysteries will collide?and a shattering truth will be revealed.

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