Just Finished Reading: Thinning the Turkey Herd by Robert Campbell (FP: 1988) [185pp] 

Jimmy Flannery thought that he’d heard everything by now. But he was still surprised to discover that Chicago was a magnet for aspiring models who couldn’t make it to either New York or LA. Naturally he wasn’t surprised that most of them never ‘made it’ and ended up pursuing other dreams. Many went back home, some moved on still looking to make it big, some stayed in the city and some simply vanished. So, when Jimmy heard from an old friend that her girlfriend had disappeared on the very day they were due to move in together he didn’t have a good feeling about it. But what could you do, right? Well, you do what you can and start asking questions. Naturally the cops didn’t exactly like someone messing in their backyard, but with Jimmy’s political connections they turned a blind eye to his poking around – so long as he didn’t muddy the waters. The place to start was the girl's apartment building which seemed to contain suspects galore – a crazy landlord who carried an axe wherever he went, a creepy photographer with strange eyes, an ex-hooker who seemed to know everything, a rat catcher who had a key to every apartment and that was just the start. The more Jimmy dug and the more questions he asked the more tangled things seemed to be – until they found the body and things got very serious... 

This is my 3rd (and I think last) Flannery novel – essentially because I’ve run out of them and don’t think I’ll be spending the extra effort tracking any more of them down. Overall, the plot is a simple one – find the missing girl and then, once found, find out who killed her (I’m really not giving away much here). As with the previous novels the character of Jimmy himself is pretty good, as are the supporting cast – although here his wife and father don’t get much of a mention. The suspects are a motley bunch, some of which I liked (the odd-ball rat catcher especially), and others I definitely didn’t, presumably as you were supposed to. Much like the previous novel, the plot seemed to plod along nicely for the most part but I found myself (again) wondering how Jimmy was going to solve the case as the final pages approached. There seemed to be a lot of sub-plotting that never really addressed the main thrust of the book. Although generally well written I thought the pacing was definitely an issue and the ending (satisfactory as it was) felt rather rushed with a ‘pulled out of the air/a hat’ tinge to it. This was a fairly fast read and a mostly enjoyable one but there are better crime novels out there. Fun but very disposable. Reasonable.

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