The Poison Sky

by John Shannon

P.I. Jack Liffey is hired to find a runaway teen living with a group of spiritualists who harbor a sinister secret--a secret with the potential to wipe out Los Angeles. The Poisoned Pen calls it a stunner of a book.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425174247
• ISBN13: 9780425174241
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
• Length: 241 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Welcome to L.A.

John Shannon is gutsy. He's decided to show all of us mystery readers that the genre can be expanded in multi-dimensional ways. Pushed out of its comfortable confines, and layered to include social history, economic and environmental awareness, and human drama. Less of a "Who Dunnit?" than a "Why Dunnit?" and a fun read. Sure, it's weird, noir, existential fun. But that's L.A. In the third of what I hope is a long, long series, Jack Liffey is trying to find a missing kid. A cult scene, corporate corruption, and a disaster that has something to do with the book's title get in his way, as do sad, but true traffic jams caused by grand pianos and dead Guernsey bulls. Just another day in Paradise. Shannon may swear "I am not making this up," wink, wink, nod, nod. And the cool thing is that most of the time, he isn't.

Shannon Does It Again

If you're looking for a new mystery series to sink your teeth into, check out John Shannon's Jack Liffey books. Like the previous two, this one has all the ingredients that, in my view, make for a wonderful read in this genre. There is a multi-layered case that has Liffey, finder of kids who are lost in more ways than one, mired in yet another of the seamy communities that roil behind the glitzy facade of Los Angeles; memorable characters; and a well-crafted story that involves religious freaks, industrial poison and corporate corruption. How can you go wrong! I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment.

L.A. Lowlife

John Shannon puts the Los Angeles lowlife right out there to see at every turn of the freeway, on skid row, and in big dirty businesses. The world has long been suspicious of LA as the land of the true crazies. Shannon gives them to you, right in the face of his main character, Jack Liffey--himself not exactly on an upswing.LA is always on the brink of some natural disaster or manmade catastrophe. Shannon brings the latter to a head--or a cloud--by introducing nasty industrial poison to the already smoggy sky. Liffey, however, dives into the morass of seedy characters, religious freaks, cardboard box dwellers, and a few others trying to hang onto middles class values. He saves the day for all these people, allowing the city dwellers to eke out another day--and if we're lucky another disaster from John Shannon.The prose is swift, underbellied like its characters. I get the feeling of "Chinatown" and the Chandler novels. A good read all around and worth waiting for the next one.

A Reader Review of Poison Sky, by John Shannon

I can always count on John Shannon to yank me straight into his novels and keep me there, usually depriving me of sleep as I stay up through the night to finish what I've started. His recent release, Poison Sky was certainly a good case in point. From the first page, where Liffey's progress on 405 is impeded by a dead Gurnsey bull, I am transported into the common place oddities that are a part of the L.A. culture. Shannon peppers the novel with such absurdist scenes, and characters to match--such as the old man beside the highway carrying a sign saying: WILL WORSHIP FOR FOOD, or the other old man, whom Liffey teaches to give the bypassers the finger, rather than throw pebbles at them--foreshadowing the sense of the surreal achieved at the novel's climax at GreenWorld. The L.A. of Jack Liffey is definitely not the L.A. promoted by the Chamber of Commerce, although it has its root causes in the capitalist commercialism that is so promoted. I liked especially, in this novel, the character of Liffey's daughter, who, like all of Shannon's characters, is not just a stereotypical creation, but has an agenda of her own. So, too, is Faye Mardesich a memorable and unique woman who comes in clear as real life. There is much else to like about John Shannon's Poison Sky, and I recommend readers treat themselves to a great read to find out the rest.

John Shannon's "The Poison Sky"

For those unfamiliar with Mr. Shannon's work, "The Poison Sky" is most recent title in the author's "Jack Liffey L.A. Crime Series." The series as a whole represents one of the most audacious and innovative efforts in the history of hardboiled crime fiction. When the author finally lays to rest his decent, intrepid, but sometimes perplexed hero, he will have updated and revised not only a traditon that began with Hammet and Chandler but will also have managed to chronicle the unraveling of a postmodern Los Angeles that is only a standard deviation from "Bladerunner." A recent "Chicago Tribune" review asserted that Shannon is the frontrunner to assume the contemporary Chandler mantle. Any appreciative and sensitive reader will immediately notice that these books are probably the best written detective fiction on the market. But even more importantly, when and if the series is completed, it will constitute one of the most subtle and important ethnographic studies of Southern California at the beginning of the new millennium. Jack Liffey is a Vietnam era vet and failed technical writer whose long slide into alcoholism and penury has been blunted by his intense love and concern for his teenage daughter and a curious knack for finding missing children. In the process of tracking down sysfunctional kids who should probably remain lost, Liffey manages to expose some of the most appalling social contradictions that blight the California dreamscape. Having previously exposed the machinations of corrupt politicians,drug purveyors, and corporate ripoff artists as well as the inauthenticity of a dissolute Hollywood in the age of hyper-technology, in the "Poison Sky" Liffey confronts the bizarre unrealities of the L.A. cult scene. By the end of the novel one sees that the lines are easily erased between metaphysical enthusiasm, appalling brutality, and environmental degradation. The penultimate scene in the novel is the hero's mad dash in a requestioned BMW to escape death amidst a Bhopal type chemical disaster that has killed thousands of people including (possibly/hopefully?)all the TV execs in Burbank. Rumor has it that the next installment focuses on the "Orange Curtain" an hour south of L.A. and the condition of Vietnamese strangers in an even stranger land. Shame on Putnam-Berkeley if the rumor is true that they have decided to dump brave Jack and the prolific Shannon before the logical conclusion of the series. All Shannon fanatics should register their displeasue with myopic publishers who seem to be cavalierly suppressing some of the most refreshing adult crime fiction that has hit the trade lists in decades.