Book Review: Damnation Street

Reviewed By: Lynn Harnett

Damnation Street     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Andrew Klavan
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Private Investigator   Hard Boiled   Noir
Series: Weiss and Bishop # 3
Harcourt, 2006

Klavan pushes the envelope of hard-boiled noir with this third non- stop but not quite over-the-top Weiss and Bishop tale, again narrated by the callow youth, Andrew Klavan.

Scott Weiss is a big man with a basset hound face, an ex-cop turned PI with a soft spot for prostitutes. Jim Bishop, an adrenaline junkie and definite bad-boy-lost, was one of Weiss’ operatives until he betrayed his trust (“Shotgun Alley”). Andrew Klavan is the Jimmy Olsen of the operation, an earnest young man who has met his soul mate, but been diverted by lust.

Weiss has taken up the trail of Julie Wyant (“Dynamite Road”), a prostitute “with the face of an angel” who spent one night with the sadistic “Shadowman” and has been on the run from him ever since. As

evil and clever and crazed as psycho “specialist” killers come, the Shadowman is using Weiss to find Julie – as Weiss is using Julie to find him. When Bishop comes cross a crucial piece of information about the elusive killer he joins the hunt, bent on saving Weiss from certain death.

And Klavan is left to hold down the fort. Under the direction of Sissy, the lonely, lovely, older woman who has distracted him from his true love, Emma. And he gets his first client. A Pulitzer Prize winning author who wants his daughter Emma followed – yes, that Emma.

Klavan gleefully uses every cliché in the genre, punching the story to the edge of parody. And it works. The relentless story moves so adroitly that every skillful twist seems as plausible as it is clever – the ratio of lighted motel lights to cars in the lot, for instance, alerting Weiss to the killer’s presence, and the killer’s use of disguise and misdirection to slip away once again. The pace ratchets

up so tightly that at one point it almost seems to spin out of control.

But Klavan – the author Klavan – reins it in with finesse, demonstrating that character drives action and while his characters may have the outlines of clichés they have souls and torments and aspirations and skills that make them behave the way they do.

There are a few preachy moments, when the prig in Klavan threatens to overwhelm the romanticist, but a sense of humor and a lack of respect for proportion redeems the sentiment. His fictional counterpart provides some hilarity along with a wide-eyed gallantry that’s as refreshing as it is old-fashioned.

Cinematic, funny, violent, and riveting, this is Klavan at his manic best.

Lynn Harnett

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Lynn Harnett