Safe Harbor

The style of this author is o.k.; somewhat repeat with not enough dialogues so the descriptions become tedious, but the action is compelling. This is the first book I read by Eugene Izzi. For people emmigrating to the US., this book could surely be an eye-opener about the "promised land": The crime scenes of the inner cities. The author gives the impression that he knows first-hand what he is writing about. This book is about the hopelessness of the youth being forced to become gang-bangers, clutched in a vicious circle of immorality, when the formative teenage years are wasted in hopelessness. In the United States, a good youth program is to lock them up. Nasty as the Nazis were, they had an idealistic youth program (Hitler-Jugend), because it was believed that the youth is the future of a nation. In this book the outlook is dim, as the only way out for the inner-city youth is a cage or the cemetery. The statistics don't lie: 10 000 people die each year by fire-arms in the United States, while in other countries the number is around 160. I have to give this book a lot of credit for its naked reality, as shocking as it is.

This a good example of the sort of thing it is - namely a story of undecover, larger-than-life killers, crooks, and losers whose paths converge in a final conflict wherein demons are exorcised and good prevails (relatively speaking). The author is a thoroughgoing craftsman who spends a good deal of his book painstakingly developing the characters and lives of his protagonists, who include a dropout from the witness-protection program, a homosexual hit man, an embittered journalist, and assorted loved ones, cops, and victims. The author's writing skills are sufficient to keep the reader interested until the real action begins, along about page 200. And the story is resolved without requiring anyone to step completely out of character, as is often a failing of lesser authors. This story is basically that of an up-and-coming mobster who rats on his associates and is granted federal protection. Some years later, having left the program and achieved an honest life on his own, he finds himself pursued by the past in the person of an ingenious killer with a grudge. It is the tragic nature of such novels that the characters ultimately find themselves responding to malevolent forces outside their control rather than acting on their own volition. It's also interesting to note that in most formulaic books such as this, nobody (notably the author) is permitted to display any sense of humor or any ability to stand aside from or transcend the limits of his situation. This lack of dimension makes such books and their characters easy to forget, however entertaining they may be, and is in my estimation a large part of what separates potboilers from good literature. But I suppose that without the former to keep the presses rolling, there would be no publishing business around when needed to produce the latter.

SAFE HARBOR is a fitting novel that triumphantly shows thetalent of the late Eugene Izzi. The story line moves rather quickly asits centers on life in the slums and the mob. Mr. Izzi carefully defines his characters with motives that make their actions seem genuine. The cast turns the well-written plot of SAFE HARBOR into a safe bet. Fans and critics will recognize this book as one of the year,s best stories. Renowned for novels like THE CRIMINALIST, Mr. Izzi has left his fans with a special legacy that probably is his best work in an illustrious career.