Order THE INNOCENT here
Sometimes, when the world appears to be slipping out from underneath your feet, you don't ask questions. You just go with the flow, place your trust in gravity.
There is nothing about Vincent Zandri that I haven't already said. He is an inspiration to us all. He pulled himself from the jaws of publishing oblivion years ago to become one of the biggest success stories of the eBook era. On top of thing, Zandri now travels the world like Hemingway, along with his son Bear and lives life with burning passion, for all of us sinners. Naturally, first thing I wanted to read was what got him in and out of publishing trouble, his Jack Marconi novels. THE INNOCENT left me agreeably surprised and nodding to myself in approval. It was daring, original and that intangible edge that I love but don't often see in noir. Something that makes the setting genuinely troubling, a place you wouldn't want to even dream about. The sequel GODCHILD is a rather different novel, yet it was written with the same energy and style. In the often unsatisfying business of book series and recurring characters, Vincent Zandri is a force to be reckoned with.
After the events of THE INNOCENT, Jack "Keeper" Marconi left his job in the prison system to become a private investigator. On the day of his wedding, he has a sight that paralyses him and makes him run away from the altar and into the nearest tavern. The bald man, who has murdered Jack's first wife Fran a few years back, shows up at the cemetery as Jack was saying his last goodbyes to his old life. Jack's lawyer and friend Tony Angelino finds him at the bar and brings him back to his office, where he offers him work. A client of his, a man named Richard Barnes, wants to hire Keeper to break into a Mexican prison where his wife is being held up for smuggling dope. She is a "method writer" and was posing as a "burro", a drug-smuggling housewife, in order to get material for her new story. Keeper understand Barnes wants him for his prison expertise, but he's not too crazy about embarking on such a kamikaze mission. He changes his mind when he stumbles upon a detail that mysteriously ties Barnes to his wife's murder.
GODCHILD is in many ways more conventional than THE INNOCENT was. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just quite an unexpected turn of event as a protagonist who occupies an often maligned role in crime fiction (a prison warden) leaves his role to become a classic anti-hero (a private eye). The best way I could describe GODCHILD is Raymond Chandler meets Andrew Klavan. Keeper is smooth, educated and strong with the verb, as Philip Marlowe was and yet he lives in a paranoid underworld where the rich always get what they want, no matter how perverted, which reminded me somewhat of Klavan's DON'T SAY A WORD *. It's a successful mix and with the tremendous scope the novel had (Albany-Mexico), GODCHILD shows considerably more ambition than your run-off-the-mill P.I story.
"Right now I'm safer dead than alive," I said.
"Aren't we all?" he said.
Vincent Zandri understands what makes detective novels enjoyable probably more than I do, because I kept turning the pages of GODCHILD without knowing why. It lacks the originality and somewhat the grimness of THE INNOCENT, but the support cast, especially Richard Barnes and his wife Renata, kept GODCHILD going strong. Zandri put a lot of effort into creating atmosphere also, in the Mexico-based chapters in particular. I'm going to be honest here and tell you it felt deliberate at times. Some of those scenes really clued you in about the nature of Jack's investigation. I can't really knock an author for making atmosphere a priority (which Zandri does, in my experience of him), but in GODCHILD, it's not as seamless as in THE INNOCENT and borderlines caricature at times. Be aware that this criticism is centered around one character and the scenes that involve him though. It's a problem, but it's an insular problem and doesn't plague the novel completely.
I'll be honest again, I read GODCHILD in a little more than forty-eight hours. Vincent Zandri has the rhythm and the fluidity to his style, that makes him easy to enjoy. I have read several detective novels in the last three or four years, but nothing like this one. Zandri has a nose for mixing the right variables to make a story stand out from its competitors. So many novels of this genre are about a disappearing girl or about drugs or weapons, these variables are completely left out GODCHILD which makes it feel fresh for the genre. Reading Vincent Zandri, it's understandable why he found success. He is committed to the right things: originality, accessible and enjoyable writing, picking the right media stories to craft around (this time, the corruption of power in Mexico). Overall, GODCHILD comes up a tiny bit short of THE INNOCENT, but as far as detective novels go, it's a satisfying experience.
THREE STARS
* If you have seen the movie only, please know that it's an extremely watered-down product. The novel is as disturbing as literature can get.