Streets on Fire

by John Shannon

In the gripping fifth novel of what the Philadelphia Inquirer calls a "lean and literate" crime series, Jack Liffey--the rough-edged, compassionate private detective who garners even more enthusiastic reviews and fans with each new case--once again searches the volatile and dangerous ethnic communities buried in the urban sprawl of Los Angeles for another of the city's mysteriously lost. This time out, Liffey is looking for a prominent 1960s civil...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786710187
• ISBN13: 9780786710188
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Emotionally gripping adventure

When a young interracial couple vanishes, private detective Jack Liffey is hired to investigate. It isn't a good time for Jack--he's worried about his girlfriend and his daughter, and it isn't a good time for Los Angeles, racked by racial tension and riot, but Liffey goes to work. The police and even the FBI have muddied the waters but the missing man's niece gives him his biggest clue. Now if Liffey can stay along long enough, he may learn the truth. Unfortunately for him, staying alive is difficult when a well armed and determined group of Christian extremists are after you. Author John Shannon delivers an emotionally compelling and satisfying mystery. Liffey's attempts at detection are bounded at one side by his daughter's attempts to help--which end up creating any father's ultimate nightmare--and at the other by the riots that threaten to send Los Angeles into flames. Clinging to his much abused moral code, Liffey must survive both white extremists and African-American gang bangers. Shannon brings a left-wing slant to his writing, but this doesn't keep him from delivering an exciting and fast-paced adventure.

My new favorite author

I have been reading John Shannon's Jack Liffey series with increasing excitement - at last, an author who dives headfirst into the complicated and emotionally-charged issues of race and politics, and at the same time writes a hell of a good story. His characters are unique and completely believable. If you love a great story, and are tired of superficial portraits of urban life, I highly recommend a strong dose of Jack Liffey.

an entertaining book with serious underpinnings

With "Streets on Fire" John Shannon delivers another winning book, as entertaining a read as anything he's done, despite his audacity in throwing some relevant political content into the mix. I have to agree with Charlotte Vale Allen's bewilderment at the vitriol in the PW review--does a genre book have to be witlessly apolitical to be worth a reader's time and effort?

Noir with something extra

With each new Jack Liffey book, Shannon seems to go from strength to strength. I found STREETS ON FIRE even more gripping than its predecessors, as Liffey feels the heat of LA's troubled race relations. As usual he finds himself in all kinds of trouble, both personal and public, with little more than his own unflinching honesty to fall back on. And as usual, Shannon uncovers new layers of the vast and endlessly quirky city that he is making distinctively his own. Like his forebears Chandler and Ross Macdonald, Shannon combines a ruefully affectionate eye for the details of Californian life with a more trenchant vision of American society. Yet in the midst of the tension and mayhem, and the stunted personalities who reflect America's discordant history, we also meet characters who touch us with their creativity, courage, and generosity under fire. I believe that with each new book Shannon's Los Angeles is growing into one of the most fully imagined urban environments in contemporary fiction.

Once again, brilliant!

I have to shake my head in bemusement at the pure venom of the Publishers Weekly review. Clearly, the reviewer had an agenda, and he vented at John Shannon's expense in what is not any sort of recognizable review but a misinformed tirade. Having been subjected myself to similar tirades (and having shaken my head in bemusement over those, too) I cannot say I'm surprised, just merely dismayed.John Shannon has written yet another exceptional entry in the Jack Liffey series--which is not so much a traditional mystery as it is an extension of a formidable array of character studies. The author has an extraordinary feel for the inner lives of young people and he writes about them with insight and never-faltering respect.Jack looks for missing children. And along the way, with dark humor, a certain touching fatalism, and an eye for the endless apocalyptic glimpses of life in Los Angeles (a man juggling sundry power tools, all of them turned on; two boys tap-dancing in the midst of a riot), he introduces us to an ever-fascinating view of well-drawn, heartfelt characters. In Streets on Fire, there are so many splendidly real characters--even the villains are well above stereotype--that it's difficult to single any one of them out for acknowledgment. But my personal favorite in this cast is the eleven-year-old Ornetta, a born story-teller who believes in the magic of her talisman (which, incredibly, is a crack vial that belonged to her mother). Liffey's daughter Maeve, who comes into her own in this book, teams with Ornetta in a climactic scene that is wrenching and powerful, as the two girls struggle with a wheelbarrow bearing Maeve's injured father, making their way through the riot-riven streets of the city, trying to get Liffey to a hospital. Ultimately, a potent couple comes to the aid of the two girls, only to find themselves pursued by a massive pack of dogs. This pack is the metaphor within the metaphor that illustrates what can happen when the tamed are suddenly set free to do what they will. And what they will do, too often, is madly, randomly violent.I loved this book. It speaks volumes about the inherent goodness and evil that reside in the hearts of the people all around us, and makes clear the simple truth that, "Doing the right thing is never a mystery."Streets on Fire has my highest recommendation.