Streets on Fire by John Shannon

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


"A voice spoke out of the sky, louder than any voice had a right to be.'Get indoors, now! All of you boys! This area is under curfew!'
There was an insistent dull pop-pop-pop from overhead [...]"

Streets of Fire (2002) is the tenth book by John Shannon that I am reviewing here. Sadly, the quality of his work has steadily been on the downward trajectory. I rated the wonderful The Orange Curtain with four stars and could confidently recommend all his early works. But then something happened to the author and after several weak books he produced one of the most idiotic mystery/thriller novels I have read in my life, the ridiculous Devils of Bakersfield . So I was understandably apprehensive about Streets and indeed, it is not a good novel at all.

Jack Liffey is a sort of private detective in Los Angeles, who specializes in finding missing children. He takes a job for the Davises - an elderly African-American couple who have been active in the civil rights movement since the 1960s. Their adopted son and his Caucasian wife, college juniors, disappeared several weeks earlier and the police have not found any promising clues. Their car has turned up empty so the worst is expected. In the course of his inquiry Mr. Liffey zeros in on several racist groups involved in fight against multiculturalism. Particularly troubling is a network of youth clubs promoting racism and advocating white supremacy under the guise of fostering moral growth.

Just as Mr. Liffey begins the investigation his 14-year-old precocious daughter Maeve comes to live with him for a while. When Maeve reads the paperwork of the Davis' case in her father's study, she begins the investigation on her own. Maeve soon befriends Ornetta, a niece of the missing young man, and recruits her to the investigation. They begin watching a biker gang and get into serious trouble. All this happens on the backdrop of riots in Los Angeles caused by police misconduct and brutality. The minority neighborhoods are erupting: people demand justice. Mr. Shannon's images of the riots, looting, and chaos are vivid and convincing. This is the best part of the novel.

Streets of Fire is really a thriller: the extended ending is a rollercoaster of events that I am unable to summarize without spoiling. Let me just mention that Mr. Liffey finds himself in grave danger and that Maeve and Ornetta play a prominent role in the later part of the plot. The portrayal of the girls is another good thing about the novel. All other characters including Mr. Liffey are paper-thin, without any depth. Mr. Shannon had shown that he could write characters in his earlier novels; here he is just coasting.

Now about the worst aspect of the novel. It is supposed to carry an inspirational and worthy message of condemnation of racism and prejudice. Mr. Shannon obliterates that message by using "in-your-face", stereotypical, and superficial literary means. The situations are cliché and the presentation is totally nuance-free. Basically every minority character - whether in the sense of race, gender or sexual orientation - is a wonderful person while any non-minority person is automatically suspect of prejudice. This crude approach to promoting a worthy cause is misguided. If not for the images of LA riots and the Maeve/Ornetta thread this book would not have escaped the lowest rating.

Two stars.



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