Reader’s Advisory SIG—Chicago Fiction, September 2006 Meeting

Robinson, C. Kelly. No More Mr. Nice Guy. 2002

Mitchell Stone is tired of waiting for his dream girl, Nikki Coleman, to realize that a nice guy like him is what she needs. Since Nikki is more attracted to the sexy “Players” who won’t settle down with one woman, Mitchell enlists the help of several more worldly friends to turn him into a Player, too. How far will he have to go before Nikki sees that he’s the man for her? Set in Chicago and the south suburbs, this is a funny look at the dating lives of young, upwardly mobile African American professionals.

Audience: Adult

Debbie Darwine, LaGrange Public Library

Fuller, Henry B. With the Procession. 1895

The David Marshall family is one of the last of the Old Settler families still living on their stretch of Michigan Avenue. All around them neighbors are selling their homes to business establishments and moving to other areas of the city, or (gasp!) to the burgeoning suburbs. David, a wholesale grocer, is dealing with forces in his business which are taking more and more control away from him. His cranky wife, two selfish, social climbing daughters, and dilettante son aren’t of much help in his family’s slide from society. It’s up to Jane, the plain spinster daughter, with the help of her father’s boyhood flame, now the wealthy Mrs. Granger Bates, to restore the family to society’s good graces. This is a charming, old fashioned story of a changing world and the people who are struggling to adapt, as well as being a vivid portrait of the early days of Chicago.

Audience: Adult, Young Adult

Debbie Darwine, LaGrange Public Library

Kaminsky, Stuart M. Not Quite Kosher. 2002

A series of coincidences following a jewelry store heist gone bad complicates matters for Abe Lieberman, Chicago cop, who is working the case with longtime partner Bill Hanrahan. Adding to the confusion are plans for Abe’s grandson’s bar mitzvah, and recovering alcoholic Bill’s upcoming wedding to Iris, the Chinese waitress he loves. The story unfolds primarily on the north side of Chicago, and accurately describes the flavor of the neighborhoods. This is the seventh book in the wryly-humorous series.

Audience: Adult

Debbie Darwine, LaGrange Public Library

Just, Ward. An Unfinished Season.

In 1950s Chicago, the season before starting college, Wils Ravan has a place in three worlds. His father Teddy owns a printing plant, and gets threats during a strike at his plant. His mother Jo dreams of a second honeymoon in Havana, away from the tensions of Chicago, then becomes a feng shui devotee. Wils works at a Chicago newspaper, discovering what’s really going on in the city, and spends nights at debutante balls on the North Shore, where he meets enigmatic psychiatrist’s daughter Aurora. A lovely story with a strong sense of time and place, recommended for adults and older teens.

Booktalked by Brenda O’Brien, Woodridge Public Library.

Paretsky, Sara. Blacklist.

A black journalists body stumbled over in the pond of a vacant suburban mansion leads V.I. Warshawski to discover why his story on blacklisted dancer/professor Kylie Ballantine led the journalist to the suburbs. On the way she gives refuge to an Arab student suspected of terrorist ties, and finds out how her own civil liberties have eroded. The past and present of a few wealthy families intertwine and end in an exciting showdown. Not her best; all the wealthy privileged types are imperious, and V.I. predictably rebels against their wishes. Recommended for adults.

Booktalked by Brenda O’Brien, Woodridge Public Library

Hellmann, Libby Fischer. An Eye for Murder.

An unexpected letter draws filmmaker Ellie Foreman into a web of unraveling secrets in Chicago’s Jewish community, including those of her father Jake. An unexpected character may have old Nazi ties, affecting the senate campaign of Marian Iverson, who has asked Ellie to produce her campaign video. A man looking for his Chicago past becomes a romantic interest for Ellie, until she learns the real identity of David’s father.

A fast paced, enjoyable mystery. Recommended for adult. Booktalked by Brenda O’Brien, Woodridge Public Library

Alvarado, Lisa; Ann Hagman Cardinal, and Jane Alberdeston Coralin. Sister Chicas.

Three Latina teens in Chicago bond after working on the school paper. Taina writes poetry, helps in her Puerto Rican mother’s restaurant, has a secret Jamaican boyfriend, and really doesn’t want a quinceanara celebration.

Grachi is a college student who’s stretched too thin helping out but really wants to go to a writer’s workshop. Leni is the rebel, brought up by an Irish mother, denying her Latina heritage. How they all deal with their parents, boys, and the dreaded quinceanara party make for an appealing story. Recommended for young adults.

Booktalked by Brenda O’Brien, Woodridge Public Library.

Cisneros, Sandra, Caramelo, 2002

Each summer Lala Reyes and her numerous brother pile into the car for the long trek to Mexico City to stay with their father’s mother. Most of this novel takes place in Mexico, but the portions set in the author’s (and Lala’s) native Chicago show a side of Chicago known to poor immigrants.

Debbie Wordinger, Indian Prairie Public Library

Just, Ward, An Unfinished Season, 2004

In the early 1950s, a boy graduates from high school and during the summer attends a series of debutant dances and works at a tabloid newspaper in the city. Very evocative of a certain kind of 1950s, Chicago North Shore life. A quiet novel.

Debbie Wordinger, Indian Prairie Public Library

Obejas, Achy, Days of Awe, 2001

Alejandra came to Chicago from Cuba when she was two. As an adult she returns to Cuba as a translator and, once there, makes connections with old family friends. In Cuba, Alejandra finds out what she had really always known, that her family is Jewish. Still, after hundreds of years, under the burden of the Inquisition, many Spanish Jews hid their identity. The parts of the book set in Chicago are few.

Debbie Wordinger, Indian Prairie Public Library

Nelscott, Kris. Thin Walls, 2002.

The third in the Smokey Dalton mystery series, this is the second to take place in Chicago. It is early winter 1968, and Smokey and his adopted son Jimmy are living under assumed names. They are on the run from the FBI, having witnessed Martin Luther King's assasination in Memphis. Smokey, a private investigator (unlicensed), is drawn into a murder case that the police are only giving cursory attention to - after all, the victim is Black. While digging into the case, Smokey discovers a trail of victims, killed in a similar manner but with no other similarities - except that each victim is Black. Capturing the racism of the era, both casual and overt, and with a great sense of the differences between Chicago's neighborhoods, this gripping mystery will satisfy any reader.

Audience: adult and older YA

Nancy Bent, La Grange Public Library

Guilfoile, Kevin. Cast of Shadows, 2005.

Set in a near future where human cloning is a legal form of assisted reproduction, and where half the populace plays the popular interactive video game Shadow World, fertility doctor Davis Moore discovers that his daughter has been brutally raped and murdered. When Moore retrieves her belongings and finds a vial of the perpetrator's semen, he realizes that he can clone his daughter's killer and therefore solve the case. Is a clone the same as the original? What is the nature of good and evil? Instead of a black vs. white dichotomy, this cautionary tale/thriller is told in shades of grey. While set in Chicago (and written by a local author), this novel could have taken place in any larger metropolitan area.

Audience: adult

Nancy Bent, La Grange Public Library

Meeker, Arthur. Prairie Avenue, 1949.

This nice, old fashioned read is set on a real-life fashionable street in Chicago - a street where the city's movers and shakers have settled after the Chicago Fire and have built their mansions. Spanning the years 1885-1918, the rise and fall of the neighborhood, the social ins and outs of the street's residents as they jockey for social position, and the future of the next generation are chronicled through the eyes of a young man who moves to Prairie Avenue to live with his relatives. The narrator's slight distance from theaction, yet close proximity to all the players, provides a marvelous look at Guilded Age Chicago.

Audience: adult and interested YA

Nancy Bent, La Grange Public Library

City for Ransom by Robert W. Walker

Mystery, Chicago 1893

Fans of Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City will appreciate this fictional account of a serial murderer at large during the Colombian Exposition.Stuffed with period details, it is sure to have appeal for fans of historical mysteries as well.Believable characters, dialogue, and investigation details—the author clearly took a lot of time doing his research.The story moves at a good pace featuring vivid descriptions and well-planned scenes.

Smoke Filled Rooms by Kris Nelscott

Jennie Milojevic, Riverside Public Library

Mystery, Smokey Dalton Series, Chicago 1968

P.I. Smokey Dalton has fled Memphis with a 10-year old boy—a witness to the assassination of Martin Luther King.He is hoping to lay low and find some work, but the city is chaotic, racially tense, and filled with police and government agents (the Democratic Convention looms).It’s clear that Chicago was a poor choice for a hiding place.Trouble from Memphis has followed; Smokey is being watched.He is dragged into a new investigation as young boys from his South Side neighborhood begin to disappear.Readers should probably start with the first in the series, A Dangerous Road, in order to get the full impact of this sequel.Nonetheless, it would be a good suggestion for readers who enjoy Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series.

Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher

Jennie Milojevic, Riverside Public Library

Fantasy/Science Fiction, Dresden Files Series, Chicago present day+

Harry Dresden is the only working wizard in Chicago.He’s consulted with the police and investigated many odd cases on his own.In the 8th book in this hugely entertaining series, Harry has to maneuver a war between wizards and vampires, find out who is using black magic in the city, and help the daughter of an old friend.No problem, there’s just a horror convention, a great place for real monsters to appear, going on.This series is consistently fantastic and darkly funny (Bob, the talking skull, is not to be missed).Butcher has created a wonderful, complex world.There are brief “catch-up” details in each book, so reading in order isn’t exactly critical.A good match for fans of Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, vampires, and witches…

Collins, Max Allan. Road to Paradise. 2005. 289 p.

In the hour before he is murdered Sam DeStafano reassured his protégé nephew, “Little Sam,” that he would eventually become comfortable with “teaching lessons” to those who fell behind on loans.

In Tahoe, Mike “The Saint” Saterino abruptly leaves his comfortable life and clean mob job and moves into the Witness Protection Program. The hit on his life isn’t the only miss, though. Misunderstandings of alliances and misheld grudges send Mike and his family (what’s left of it) on a mission to right these wrongs. Would-be thug “Little Sam” finds out who really killed his father and both he and Mike return to God asking for forgiveness.

The sequel to Road to Perdition, Road to Paradise is a fast paced page turner. Though, at times, the protagonist’s deep sense of religious commitment is a bit hard to swallow.

Organized crime and references to Sam Giancana’s one time reign over Chicago and several suburbs warranted this title a Chicago subject heading.

Linda Conrath, Orland Park Public Library

Black, Michael A. The Heist. 2005. 291 p.

Lincoln and Rick, fellow Marine vets from the Gulf War, maintain their strong friendship, despite their respective families’ reservations. But the cause for reservation is exactly what enables to two to pull off a stunt late one night in downtown Chicago when an underground flood shuts the city down. Their heist was technically stealing, but taking from a big time gangster’s safe deposit box doesn’t count. But what they got was more than they bargained for when a videotape of the brutal execution of yet another family member about to turn state’s evidence falls into their possession. The physical and mental skills of the ex-Marines are underestimated by kidnappers, mobsters, lawyers, hitmen, and police as they struggle to get back Linc’s girlfriend Diane, keep his abetting uncle out of trouble, and stay alive.

The author, a police sergeant in Matteson, offers a strong sense of place, detailing the neighborhoods (Hegewisch) and even the old abandoned Gately’s. Altough he has written two other books, this is his first stand alone thriller. Love and loyalty also have prominence.

Linda Conrath, Orland Park Public Library

Clark, Jack. Westerfield’s Chain. 2003. 308 p.

While investigating an auto accident, ex cop private eye Nick Acropolis unintentionally puts himself in the middle a much bigger crime. Jimmy, the sole clerk at the Westerfield Pharmacy, skirts simple questions about the accident and disappears after Acropolis’ questioning.

Acropolis spots a late model luxury car driven by a white female near the pharmacy and follows her out of the black neighborhood. The woman turns out to be Eugene Westerfield’s daughter, Becky, who is looking for her missing father. She hires Nick and together they discover more than her father. Seemingly flat characters encountered by Nick in his travails, such as the used bicycle salesman, the mute homeless man, and the two winos across the street from the pharmacy, turn out to be essential to the story.

The book has a strong sense of place and was a 2002 Shamus Award Nominee for Best First P.I. Novel. Author Clark’s keen knowledge of the downtown and south/southeast side streets and neighborhoods comes through.

Jack Clark currently resides in Evanston and is still driving his cab. He also writes a column for the Reader.

Linda Conrath, Orland Park Public Library