The Devils of Bakersfield

Very interesting and entertaining mystery. And if you think the depiction of what passes for "justice" in Bakersfield is an exaggeration, read Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Humes' book Mean Justice about DA Ed Jagels and his misuse of power. I live here. It is no distortion.

The author does a great job of flavoring this neo-noir novel with the names, eccentricities, locations, and history of intolerance in and around Bakersfield, California. (Being an outsider who's lived here for many years, his commentary on the "dales" (Stockdale, Rosedale, Oildale...) had me laughing out loud.) Really thought the use of news articles and reports about actual incidents involving KKK, John Birchers, violence against minority groups, worked well.

First off, this is my first Jack Liffey mystery and one of only a handful of books that I have read of its genre. I picked up the book because I saw that it was set in Bakersfield, the city where I grew up, and because the author was going to be speaking at a bookstore near where I live now. The book is a quick, fun read. While it has some slow parts, it is generally fast-moving and entertaining, never tedious. The author throws in some literary references here and there which are fun to spot and think about, but in general the book reads more like genre fiction. Sometimes the author delves into deeper issues and hits the reader over the head with them. He and, by extension, his protagonist Liffey, could be a bit more subtle. In a few places Liffey seems to make statements that are somewhat obvious--restating what has already happened. This doesn't further the story and sometimes makes it seem as if Shannon is using Liffey to lecture the reader. Shannon's treatment of Bakersfield is a bit rough-handed, though in many ways its not that far off the mark. I really liked the historical artifacts that he put throughout the book. His use of historical context and fog were very creative and were a highlight of the book. It was fun seeing staples of Bakersfield like the Marketplace, the bluffs, and Oildale in print. I'm struggling right now to give this book four stars. I think it's more of a 3.5 star book. It's 4 to 5 stars a lot of the way through, but the ending is just plain bad. Overall, a very readable book that I would recommend to people who read crime noir and anybody who wants to read a book with a lot of the Central Valley in it.

This book is full of action and some humor, and although it seems pretty likely the good guys will come out okay, the exact nature of the resolution is not all that obvious till it's reached. I especially liked the main characters, Jack Liffey and his daughter Maeve and Sergeant Ramirez. I was not aware of the nasty history of intolerance attributable to Bakersfield and environs till reading the historical tidbits scattered throughout the text. This is also one of the few books I've picked up that has an alternative ending.

Here is another wonderful book from one of my favorites, John Shannon. This time as well as allowing us to catch up with the ongoing Liffey saga, the author has taken us further afield, leaving LA County for oil-rich Bakersfield. Even though I knew some of the grim Bakersfield history & politics, this book brings it alive & shows how the past affects the present. Most of all though, it's a GREAT read & as usual with Shannon's books, I could hardly put it down!