REVIEW: THE WOLVES OF FAIRMOUNT PARK by Dennis Tafoya

SYNOPSIS: Two teens were shot in front of a dope house, though neither boy was known to be a user or dealer. One boy is dead, the other comatose. The surviving boy is the son of a beat cop; the dead boy is the only child of a successful businessman. Was it a case of wrong time, wrong place? What really happened, what chain of events brought these two boys out of their safe neighborhoods and to such a fate, is explored from four points of view: The two fathers, the detective who gets the case, and the heroine-addicted uncle of the comatose boy. Once the truth begins to spill out, none of these men will ever be the same.

REVIEW: To call Dennis Tafoya's new novel both powerful and moving is to use a cliché too frequently bestowed on undeserving novels. But The Wolves of Fairmount Park is deserving of all the praise readers can muster. This is a story dark and sweet, poignant and provocative, raw and real.

A truly great crime novel is about more than just whodunnit. It's about the characters, and how their lives are turned inside out by the crime. I had a professor once who told me that if you wanted to study crime, you must study two kinds of people: criminals and, well, there isn't a second kind, he admitted. Crime, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. In this book Tafoya has done a brilliant job of bringing his characters and criminals to painful life, and I can already say with great certainty that this is one of the best books I'll read this year.

The prose is dark and lyrical, but not florid, and the author has great insight into his characters. Orlando, the uncle/addict, is so very memorable. The reader is constantly torn between pity, revulsion, fear, and heartbreak for him, and yes, pride in him, too. Orlando may be the one character who doesn't deceive himself, even though he will deceive others or descend to petty crimes in order to get his fix. And Orlando knows the streets and the people of the streets as well as he knows himself. He can read intent and motive in every nuance and gesture. To get at the truth, he endures and he sacrifices in ways most people cannot imagine, even while he lies and steals and uses.

Orlando isn't seeking the truth out of some action-hero notion of vengeance either. Finding the truth may be his last opportunity to prove his value as a human being, a value that was dismissed long ago by his family and friends. He wants what, in the end, all of us want: redemption. All of the main characters have their reasons for seeking the truth: Orlando's brother, the beat cop, wants justice for his son. The businessman wants, too late, to get to know his son. The detective is looking to his career. The  beat cop, the businessman, and the detective all want Orlando to stay out of the way. His drug habit is perceived to be part of the problem that must have initiated the shootings in the first place. It is easier to point fingers at Orlando and other users than for these men to undergo the kind of self-examination that might result in personal culpability.

Here is an excerpt in which Orlando, shot by a psychotic PI working the case, is visited in the hospital -- the same hospital in which his nephew lies in a coma -- by the boy's father, Brendan. Orlando's girlfriend, Zoe, also an addict, is present.

He heard her breathing and looked over to see her head down, her hands over her eyes.

"What am I supposed to do, you get killed? Where do I go then?"

He breathed out, tried to think what to say. Then he saw a shadow in the door and it was Brendan. Shit.

"Orlando?"

He ducked his head, a reflex. Looked up at his brother as he resolved from a dark figure into someone recognizable. Saw for the first time the gray pasted into the hair at his temple, the deep cul-de-sacs under his eyes. Looked down again.

"You're out of bed? You're okay?"

Orlando couldn't think what to say, mumbled "sorry" under his breath, looked from Zoe's wary, foxlike eyes to Brendan's frantic ones.

"Jesus, Orlando. Jesus."

"I didn't do it. Didn't do anything. This crazy fuck tried to kill me."

"We don't have enough, me and Kath? Not enough to worry about? We have to hear this, too?"

"I swear to Christ, Bren." He held his hands up, empty palms catching the light, and the IV pole rattled. He felt like a ghost, a phantom festooned with chains. Not fully present in life, able only to horrify. Looking from one disappointed face to another. The fact of him an object lesson, a curse.

If you want to read a book that the critics are going to be falling over themselves to praise, read The Wolves of Fairmount Park. I'll be very surprised if this book doesn't make a whole bunch of "best of" lists this coming December. I know it will be on my list.

THE WOLVES OF FAIRMOUNT PARK
by Dennis Tafoya
Release date: June 22, 2010
Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 352 pp.
ISBN: 9780312531164

Available online from these independent booksellers:

Aunt Agatha's New & Used  Mysteries, Detection & True Crime Books
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Warwick's Books
Mystery Lovers Bookshop
The Poisoned Pen
Powell's Books
Skylight Books
Vroman's Books

REVIEW: DOPE THIEF by Dennis Tafoya

SYNOPSIS: Ray and Manny have the badges, the jackets, the guns, the drug-fueled attitudes. They have everything they need to make small-time dope dealers think they've just been raided by the DEA. When the dealers figure out otherwise, who're they going to call? The cops? But Ray and Manny have already done time and they're smart enough to know that their little string of 'raids' can't go on forever. But they aren't smart enough to quit while they're ahead. Or maybe the dope clouds their thinking, their timing. Eventually it's one raid too many, one dealer too big and with too many resources, and you can guess the kind of trouble they're facing. But Ray's got other issues. He's just turned 30, and even if he lives through the violence he's embraced, he's wondering what it's going to take to escape his addiction, his predestination, the loser life that his sadder but not wiser father told him he could never be free from. What's it going to take for Ray to not only break those shackles but also to atone for his sins, the lives he's ruined, the years he's wasted, the hearts he's broken? It looks like an impossible task, and if Ray can't kick the dope, can't make some kind of amends, then he reckons he might as well be dead anyway.

REVIEW: When literary snobs look down their noses at genre fiction, Dope Thief is the kind of book they hurriedly overlook, or else it's the kind of book they claim is the exception to the rule and then go on to point out the vast amount of poorly written crime fic while blithely ignoring the staggering output of bad 'literary' fiction. Because beyond the dark edginess of the writing and the stark depictions of life on the lowest socioeconomic scale, author Tafoya has woven a character study that stands with any literary creation I've read.

And it's not just the character of Ray. It's his pal, Manny, it's Ray's step-mom and his just-out-of-prison dad; it's the thieving, doped-up teenagers he meets; hell, it's even his step-mom's dog - the cast of characters are all so individual, so completely rounded, and so ready to tip in one direction or another and forever alter Ray's life. He's pushed one way and goes another. Thirty years old and just starting to try to figure out what being a man, what being a human means.

The author plays no games with the construction of the story. It's told simply, in third person singular. There are a few well-placed flashbacks to help fill in Ray's backstory. The transitions are clean. The prose never gets flighty or purple, it suits Ray's story. And something not often seen in debut novels, there are smaller story arcs under the overreaching arch of Ray's struggle. The story is well-paced, with dread and tension building just before the raids and then the explosions of violence, then the adrenaline ebbs but the story remains compelling as Ray just tries to deal with the consequences of what he's done and what's happening in the lives of those he loves.

While books like Beat the Reaper may be getting all the buzz, Dope Thief is a book that truly deserves a wide audience. Few writers turn out a book this good on their fourth, fifth or sixth tries; this is a debut novel. I can't imagine how much better Tafoya is going to get, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

You know I love to provide excerpts. I had a lot of trouble settling on just one scene from this book. Here, Ray and Manny have met to discuss whether to use a guy named Rick on their next job. They digress a little, and Ray mentions Manny's gambling problem, and the conversation rolls from there:

"Great, then. She can dole out the money, get the rent paid and keep you from getting your legs broken by Dickie Legrossa when the Sixers tank. What you owe him now, about twenty grand?"

"Oh, stop. It's a couple thousand. Anyway, I got a system."

"Yeah, how's that working?"

Manny pulled a medal from inside his shirt and kissed it. "And I got Saint Bernadine on my side."

Ray said, "You and Arnold Rothstein." He squinted through the smoke from Manny's cigarette. "You're the one asked me to dole out the money. Hey, though, you got to love that there's a patron saint for gambling degenerates."

Manny waved his arm expansively. "There's a saint for every fucking thing. My ex-wife's cousin, Deborah?"

"The good-looking one."

"She says there's a patron saint for meth cookers."

Ray held a palm up as if to stop the flow of bullshit. "Get the fuck out."

Manny held his hand across his chest, cigarette out. "I swear to Christ. Saint Cosmas she says. He's like the patron saint of people who work with chemicals. She was dating that guy, you know the one. Jacques or Jocko or some shit."

"I remember. He's in Graterford now, right?"

"When she moves in and finds out he's dealing, she goes to the priest and asks what does she do. You can imagine that conversation."

Ray smiled. "He's cooking in the house, the kid's there..."

"But deep down he's a good guy."

"A sweet girl, not a smart one."

"No. But the priest comes up with Saint Cosmas. And of course that she should dime Jocko."

"Which she does."

Manny gave a half-shrug. "Of course, the asshole is also beating her and the kid, so..."

"Well, wherever he is, I'm sure Saint Cosmas is looking out for him."

They stood in the lot for a minute. Ray watched tiny waves cross a coffee-colored puddle. "So...the Rick question."

"You really think the cops would get onto us and try to put a guy inside?"

"Don't seem likely, huh?"

"What are we, the Dillinger gang? I think we run into trouble, it ain't going to be that kind. I don't see nobody calling the cops."

They both thought about that. You could only do this shit so long. Someone was going to recognize them, or follow them, or just do something brainless when they came in the door. They wore the cop jackets and badges and they moved with purpose and told themselves they were smart, but there was only so much luck and then it was gone. At the end of the day they were as doomed as the goofy bastards they were ripping off. Manny and Ray would do lines in the truck before they went in, getting their edges sharp, making their minds fast. It couldn't go on forever. Everyone was high. Everyone was stupid. Everyone had guns.