City of the Sun

When thirteen-year-old Jamie Gabriel disappears while delivering his early morning paper route, his upwardly mobile parents, Paul and Carol, think at first he must have left early for school. With hard graphic certainty, the reader knows otherwise. Jamie has become the victim of a child prostitution ring. What follows for the parents is an exercise in depression as days, then weeks go by and the police learn nothing. Oh, they're polite enough, but bottom line - they think Jamie is a runaway. Fourteen months pass. The Gabriel's have tried two private investigators. The police haven't logged two hours on the case in over a year. Paul and Carol? Their missing son hangs between them like a burning cross. Most couples who lose a child end up divorcing. They're on track. Enter Frank Behr. Former police officer now private investigator. At 14 months, Frank knows how hopeless this case is, but he's carrying his own luggage and it too involves a lost son. Despite his better judgement, he knows he wants the case, and it will not only be that, it will be a rescue of another sort too - a marriage. City of the Sun's redemption plot takes on one of the oldest and most taboo perversions, sex with children, in this case, boys. There are men who will do anything for it, and City of the Sun is filled with the people who help them succeed. This novel is gritty, harsh, every adjective you've ever heard applied to the genre, but there's heart as well. Heart in the struggles of Paul and Carol to hold on, and in Behr's reflections on his past failures. The boy's fate? Hey, download your own copy. Art Tirrell is the author of the 2007 adventure novel The Secret Ever Keeps set on and under the waters of Lake Ontario. "simply put...the best underwater scenes I've ever read." M. Westley

CITY OF THE SUN is a fantastic work of fiction. You realize this within the first few sentences, the ones that sink hooks into your brain with every letter. These letters coalesce into words, sentences and paragraphs, and before you know it, the night is gone and the book is done. You're still on the edge of your seat, and your eyes are bleary (maybe a little wet, too). Though this is not David Levien's first novel, he has been known primarily as a screenwriter. You may have seen his work on the film Ocean's 13, the television show "Tilt" and a number of other successful projects. None of what has gone before, however, will prepare you for this stark tale of good versus evil in its most basic form. What Levien does is create a perfect modern noir tale around Frank Behr, a damaged, quietly bent ex-cop turned private detective whose people skills are somewhat lacking but whose strength and courage seem inexhaustible. Behr is based in Indianapolis, hardly a city one thinks of as being a hotbed of danger. But Levien transforms it into a fearsome locale within a few pages, with one simple yet horrific act: the disappearance of 12-year-old Jamie Gabriel while he is on his early morning paper route. The author gives the reader just enough to know that Jamie is in a very bad, if unknown, place. Unfortunately his parents, Paul and Carol, don't even possess that much knowledge. With no trace of Jamie more than a year after his abduction, and a lackluster police investigation, the Gabriels turn to Behr, who reluctantly agrees to take the case. Still, he informs them that they must work from the assumption that their son is dead. His investigative technique is plodding, even boring, and as realistic as it gets: he waits, makes wrong turns and right moves, good guesses and bad mistakes. One thing leads to another. Behr begins with a simple yet ingenious question, pursues it to the end, and then begins again. And again. His technique involves much more than kicking over rocks; he is slower, more deliberate and thoughtful. Since he knows in his own heart what happened to Jamie, there is no need to rush. His technique with the unwilling, on the other hand, is worth the price of admission all by itself. Behr also breaks his own immutable rule and allows Paul to join him in the investigation, an act that permits the men to form a solid if initially uneasy bond as they slowly but doggedly follow a long and deadly trail that leads to the answer regarding Jamie's fate. CITY OF THE SUN is one of those novels that will keep you up for several nights running. You will read it the first night and then spend a few more thinking. I can't wait for Levien's next project! --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

In many ways, this compelling debut by David Levien is a retelling of the John Ford/John Wayne classic. In "The Searchers", a young girl is kidnapped by raiding Commanches, and an aging ex-Texas Ranger -- aided by her adoptive brother -- tracks her down through the underbelly of Texas, their own contentious relationship turning into a partnership of mutual respect along the way. In "City of the Sun", a young boy is kidnapped, and an aging ex-cop -- aided by the boy's father -- tracks him down through the sub rosa world of sex slavery, their own strained relationship turning into a partnership of mutual respect along the way. "The Searchers" was a classic, and "City of the Sun" ably steps into those shoes as a literary retelling of a story with such raw emotional power. The characters are fully three-dimensional and believable; you can feel the anguish and torment of the parents as their marriage slowly disintegrates in the aftermath of the kidnapping, and they desperately hope for the best while slowly growing to accept that their son has died, with all the attendant self-blame and guilt. Frank Behr, the ex-cop, is meanwhile trying to deal with his own demons, and come to terms with the death of his own young son many years before. A novel of complexity and great depth, written in a fluid and fast-paced style, this is a very solid five-star performance. According to the flyleaf, this is the debut of a series featuring Behr; if so, I eagerly await the next installment.

Twelve-year-old Jamie Gabriel lives a completely normal life. His dad sells insurance, his mom is a stay-at-home mother, and he has a paper route which he rides on his bike. It's all very mundane and average, in suburban Indianapolis, right down to the day that he sets out to ride his paper route and never gets to school, or back home at the end of the day. Paul and Carol Gabriel, the parents, are frantic at first, but as it becomes apparent that the police are essentially not going to strain themselves to find what they consider a runaway, their emotions turn to anger and frustration. After a little more than a year, Paul hears about private detective Frank Behr, who used to work on the local police department. Behr has demons of his own, baggage that he carries that has dented his personality pretty badly, but once he takes the case he doggedly follows the thinnest of leads, searching for clues and discovering information that the police haven't even imagined existed. As he works his way through the case, Paul wants to help, and eventually Frank allows him to. I found this to be one of the better detective novels I've read in recent years, certainly the best among debuts. It's suspenseful, intelligent, and full of interesting characters, and the plot just rolls right along. I enjoyed City of the Sun a great deal, and I recommend it highly. A great first book.

This book is an explosive corker... I ripped through it in two days. Levien knows how to make you race through pages, ratcheting up the suspense with each new revelation. But it's his characters that really pop... you feel every emotion they're feeling and are entirely invested in their struggles. I loved it... it's the perfect airplane book. Behr is a character who will be around for a long time.