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On the Nickel

A Jack Liffey Mystery
by John Shannon
On the Nickel: A Jack Liffey Mystery. Severn House. Jul. 2010. 272p. ISBN 978-0-7278-6903-6. $28.95. M
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PI Jack Liffey was left a mute paraplegic following a landslide at the end of Palos Verdes Blue. He's engulfed in anger, frustration, and helplessness, and his doctors say it's all psychosomatic. When an old friend calls for help in locating his runaway son, Liffey's teenage daughter Maeve intercepts the call and takes on the case, hoping to help her father's recovery. She immediately gets in over her head, trolling the depths of L.A.'s skid row for the lost boy. She finds the boy in a transient hotel, but the two end up targets of a pair of ruthless thugs hired by the slumlord to clear the premises. Jack and his partner, Gloria, an LAPD sergeant, come to the rescue, but not without a conflagration and considerable bloodshed.
VERDICT A young adult plot set in a very gritty and brutal locale interspersed with news clips detailing the political turmoil of homelessness in Los Angeles and very unrealistic teenage dialog make this a confusing addition to Shannon's (Terminal Island; Concrete River) well-received neonoir series. Shannon's anger and frustration with the city's management of poverty and homelessness are clearly the point of this book, and it unfortunately overshadows the plot. Not recommended.
Reviewed by Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA , Jul 01, 2010
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