Monday 3 June 2019

City of Hate

City of Hate is another book I've owned for several months and only recently got to reading. And if Murder Deals in Ersatz was somewhat disappointing, City of Hate (Nov. 1948) got things back on course.

Once again, Tony Quinn and his crew take their skills to a different setting. The story would not work otherwise. Quinn is hired to prosecute a man accused of double murder in a town called Norwood. The man is named Jonathan Bolton and he is despised by the majority of the population, hence the name of the book. Quinn suspects, correctly, that Bolton is innocent and seeks to clear him of the charges whilst appearing to prosecute him. Nice twist.


There are several suspects to the killings with a variety of motives (in addition to the common trait of loathing Bolton) making the actual guilty party difficult to pin down.

Of course, being that the story takes place out of New York, McGrath is not present to harass the crime-fighting foursome, however he is mentioned several times. One the Norwood cops is trouble enough for the team so it doesn't feel like as much of a loss. Butch provides the comic relief here, He has been given a private investigator's badge by Tony Quinn and he can't get enough of flashing it around.

There is plenty of action in the middle parts of the book. I found a chase in an office building to be a little tricky to follow but there is plenty of excitement later as well as Quinn and Carol Baldwin attempt to evade capture from police.

So a fun, fast-paced read. I'll be directing my attention to other material for a bit but then will tear into 31 Deadly Guns, the story that followed this one.