Library Journal Review
"Judge Crater, call your office." For decades, that line delivered over a PA system insured laughs, because Judge Crater, along with Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa, is (or at least was) one of the immortals in the pantheon of missing persons. Today, he probably commands a footnote. Four months after being appointed to the New York Supreme Court, he got into a cab on August 6, 1930, and was never seen again. Was Crater done in by the mob? Eliminated by FDR in fear that charges of corruption might scuttle his presidential bid? Or did he flee into a Hooverville of Depression-era America? All were offered as possibilities. In his second appearance, private dick Fintan Dunne (Hour of the Cat) tries to piece together the story. The narrative is chockablock with police report transcripts, conversations with those still alive in the mid-1950s, and purported histories of the case. VERDICT With echoes of Raymond Chandler and Orson Welles, as well as enough period detail to outfit a vintage shop, this workmanlike effort will appeal to those interested in literary and noirish historical mysteries. But those who have never heard of Judge Crater will likely find it a cold case.-Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
Quinn delivers a satisfying solution to the real-life mystery of Joseph Crater, a New York City judge who disappeared in 1930, in this stellar hard-boiled historical, a sequel to The Hour of the Cat (2005). In 1955, a New York newspaper magnate offers PI Fintan Dunne carte blanche to investigate the case in the hope that Dunne will provide him with a sensational exclusive. Crater vanished just as an official inquiry into judicial corruption, ordered by then governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was getting underway. Perhaps Crater fled to avoid prosecution-or someone bumped him off because he knew too much. Restless in retirement, Dunne accepts the offer, despite his skepticism that such a cold trail can be meaningfully pursued. Quinn not only makes the existence of clues at such a late date plausible but also concocts an explanation that's both logical and surprising. The depth and complexity of the lead character is a big plus. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In August 1930, New York State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Crater left a Manhattan restaurant and was never seen again. Less than a year after the crash of the stock market, Crater became the embodiment of the fears, and perhaps the frail hopes, of Americans facing the Great Depression and soon to face WWII and the cold war. Was Crater rubbed out by the Mob, or did he simply disappear to find happiness as an ordinary Joe? Twenty-five years later, a Rupert Murdoch-like newspaper publisher hires private investigator Fintan Dunne to do what the NYPD couldn't do: solve the mystery of Crater's disappearance. Freely mixing history, mystery, and novelistic license, Quinn offers a noirish tale of Tammany Hall politics, sex, crime, Broadway moguls, and cops, populated by more than a dozen interesting characters. Dunne's detection seems to come a bit too easily, but Quinn's rich, insightful, evocative descriptions of New York, both in Crater's time and in 1955, will certainly please fans of historical crime novels.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2010 Booklist
Kirkus Review
A novel that suggests a fictional resolution to a historical mystery.The disappearance of New York's Judge Joe Crater in 1930 sparked speculation for decades that has never completely dissipated. After a restaurant dinner one evening, he stepped into a taxi and was never seen again. Was he a murder victim, silenced because he was about to expose the corruption that had bought his appointment? Was he a possible embarrassment who could derail the presidential ambitions of New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt? Was he a womanizer who fell afoul of a spurned lover or perhaps a lover's mate? Maybe there was even someone who had designs on Crater's wife and wanted him out of the way. Or perhaps he vanished for reasons of his own. All of these explanations are possible, some even plausible, within the fourth novel by Quinn (Looking for Jimmy: A Search for Irish America, 2007, etc.), a former New York publishing executive and political speechwriter. Though the author plainly knows the lay of the land through experience and research, the framing seems overcomplicated. The novel takes place on the 25th anniversary of the judge's disappearance, when a Rupert Murdochlike journalism mogul hires detective Fintan Dunne (from Quinn's Hour of the Cat, 2005) to reopen the case. The publisher's heavily bankrolled interest seems something of a mystery to both the detective, who had been uneasily retired, and the reader. The judge never makes an appearance in the novel, except through the recollection of others, and almost all of the characters are fictional, with the notable exception of the judge's wife (or widow). "As long as people are interested in sex, crime, politics and the big city, Crater will continue to be of interest," explains an "Author's Note." But since the detective doesn't enter the picture until 25 years after the disappearance, most of his research comes from reading. Thus, despite the obligatory interludes of sex and violence, the reader spends much of the book looking over the protagonist's shoulder at what the detective is reading.This hybrid of mystery and history builds a compelling case but sets a leisurely pace in the process. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.