The Fifth Floor

Harvey follows up the excellent Chicago Way with another highly entertaining thriller, combining his spot-on eye for Chicago characters and settings with a layered plot (with a historical twist) that's fun to unravel. Michael Kelly is the protagonist and he's a street-smart tough guy with a literary edge who can't stay on the sidelines when trouble's afoot. He's enough of a player to mix it up with the upper echelon of Chicago politicians and mobsters and he has a big enough heart to watch out for a troubled teenage girl who may not be not quite what she seems. As he did in his debut, Harvey has no problem killing off or ditching supporting characters for the good of the plot. It also reinforces Kelly's loner persona - he's a little wary of letting people get too close, which is in the hard-boiled tradition. This book is highly recommended.

This is the second book and hopefully there will be more by this author.He has an wonderful hard boiled private eye and it is fun to read. This book is excellent follow up to his first book it combines history with what could have happened. Makes me want to read up on the Great fire of Chicago and more by this author

I'm not a fan of crime novels, but I *AM* a fan of historical context, so when I read the book's synopsis, I simply had to check it out. Consequently, I read "The Fifth Floor" before reading "The Chicago Way." Though Harvey's first book introduces the characters, I nonetheless had no difficulty assessing the characters in "The Fifth Floor." It can stand by itself. I found the story so well-crafted that I, myself, began to question whether Mrs. O'Leary's cow started the fire. And I liked the tipping of the hat to current Chicago and presidential politics. When Harvey wrote that there was an Illinois' Senatorial position opening up next year - predicting an Obama win - it was so natural and so contemporary. Like I said, I'm no fan of crime novels, but I found myself to be a fan of Michael Harvey.

In Chicago, private investigator Michael Kelly is working a simple domestic violence case although he knows this one is personal. His former girlfriend Janet hires him to follow her abusive husband Johnny Woods, who works for the city's mayor as a fixer of potentially embarrassing problems. Michael wants to get Janet and her daughter Taylor to a safe house as he fears what Woods is capable of doing, but the woman warns him not to make it personal. However, his surveillance quickly proves the case is much more complex when he finds a body inside an old house. As he digs into the murder he stumbled upon, Kelly begins to see connections back to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 including a cover-up back then, but still in effect, involving two prominent wealthy families with the final solution of eradicating the undesirable Irish. Afterward he is forced to visit the infamous City Hall's Fifth Floor for a lecture by the mayor to back off or else. However, Kelly begins to feel like Mrs. O'Leary's cow when the modern day killer sets him up to take the fall for the corpse he found. Still a frustrated Cubs fan and attracted to a judge he wants to call but never seems to, Michael is a terrific hardboiled private investigator who makes it to THE FIFTH FLOOR where he assumes is the wood shed for those embarrassing the powers. His second urban noir thriller (see THE CHICAGO WAY) is a superb whodunit that ties current Windy City activity to the 1871 inferno. The star investigates both even as he struggles to stay out of jail as a clever killer perfectly frames him reminding him about that cow held culpable by the myth (mindful of "Professor" Robert Wuhl's underlying assumption in "Assume the Position". Harriet Klausner

In Harvey's second Chicago noir, ex-cop and private investigator Michael Kelly finds himself knee deep in a scandal that goes all the way back to the infamous Chicago Fire of 1871, and its possible origin as an attempt by two powerful families to eliminate the city's Irish immigrants by burning down the slums. While on a surveillance case tailing an ex-girlfriend's abusive husband (who happens to be one of the mayor's personal hatchet men) in the hopes of discovering something she can use against him, Kelly stumbles upon a murder scene that reaches into Chicago's sordid past, with its money- and power-grabbing elite, and their connection to the city's long-running political machine. Seems that machine is still humming: after digging a little too deeply into the murder he uncovered, Kelly is summoned to City Hall's notorious fifth floor, where he is warned off the case by the mayor himself. Naturally Kelly is undeterred, and things get more complicated and dangerous, with more bodies turning up and an attempted frame-up of Kelly for the crimes. P.I. Michael Kelly is a wonderfully flawed but honorable character created by a talented noir stylist, and his tenacious efforts to expose the wrongdoings of Chicago's most ruthlessly powerful and respected citizens keep you rooting for the this appealing underdog. Extra points for the colorful hardboiled dialogue. Also recommended: A Stranger Lies There- a superior desert-noir set in Palm Springs, it won the Malice Domestic Award for best first mystery.