Go by Go

Jon A. Jackson has written a masterpiece of hard-boiled noir that takes efforts to organize 1917 miners and turns out a masterful story of greed, retribution and revenge.I read this book between Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me and The Golden Gizmo, both excellent examples of the noir genre. Jackson does it better.A young Pinkerton agent, Goodwin "Geed" Ryder, is sent to Butte, MT, in 1917 to help put an end to union organization. There, he befriends, and ultimately, betrays, IWW union organizer Frank Little. When Little is murdered, the young detective leaves the agency, and takes up an itinerant life as a mystery writer. Thinking the past is as dead as his friend, Little, Geed suddenly finds himself drawn back into the mix in the 1950s as the House Unamerican Activities Committee begins an investigation into Geed's ties to Communists.An overall sense of frustration builds through this book as you look at Geed's decisions and actions, but Jackson gently ties it together, giving you a fine, ultimately satisfying, story in the process.