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Mission Flats [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

William Landay (Author)
4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Forced by circumstances to become a small-town cop, the protagonist of former Boston district attorney Landay's inventive, gripping suspense debut finds himself embroiled in a big-city murder investigation. Ben Truman, the young police chief in the Maine town of Versailles (pronounced "Ver-sales"), tells us early on that he gave up his pursuit of a doctorate in history at Boston University to come home and care for his Alzheimer's-stricken mother. What he doesn't reveal-at least right away-is the true story of his mother's death and his father's alcoholic rages. Landay deals out pertinent details with the finesse of a poker player, first describing Ben's discovery of the bloated body of a Boston assistant district attorney in a rental cabin. Is the discovery really accidental? Is the almost immediate arrival on the scene of a retired Boston cop named John Kelly as fortuitous as it seems at first? Can Ben really be as much of a small-town hick (the Boston cops call him "Opie") as he appears to be? Determined to stay on the case, Ben joins a crew of big-city cops and prosecutors (including Kelly's intriguing daughter) in a search through the blighted (fictional) Boston neighborhood of Mission Flats for the answer to the ADA's murder and a 10-year-old mystery. As bits of his personal history surface, Ben occasionally seems in danger of violating one of the rules of crime fiction-that the narrator shouldn't lie to us about his role in the story. But Landay's book is such a rich, harrowing and delightful read that few will complain.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Landay uses the slow-paced, elegiac voice of his narrator to lull the reader into the false notion that this is a straightforward mystery starring a somewhat bumbling investigator; in fact, every assumption the reader makes turns into a landmine, which makes for an excruciatingly suspenseful thriller. Former District Attorney Landay sets his accomplished first novel in two places: backwoods Maine, where a way-too-young police chief encounters his first major homicide, and Boston, where the same police chief tries to navigate the shoals of the Boston police and court system. Chief Truman, the narrator, stumbles upon the body of a Boston D.A. in a lakeside cabin. The Boston PD muscles him out of the case, but Truman, undeterred by the all-but-certain knowledge that the murder belongs to the controlling gang in the toughest Boston neighborhood, putzes around on his own. Truman is aided by a retired Boston cop who teaches him fascinating things about motives, blood-spatter patterns, and staged crime scenes. Landay gives us an original detective creation in the humorous, self-deprecating Truman, and he also delivers an action-packed plot with a skillfully detonated final surprise. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Debut Novel, Jun 15 2004
By 
Craig Larson (Maple Grove, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Mission Flats (Hardcover)
I finished a great book yesterday, William Landay's debut,
_Mission Flats_. Set largely in a fictional Boston neighborhood,
it nevertheless reminded me a lot of Dennis Lehane's PI books.
Landay is a former DA from Boston, so I guess he has the background
to make things ring true.

The book follows police chief Ben Truman, of Versailles (pronounced
"Ver-Sayles"), Maine, as he becomes involved in the investigation of
the murder of a Boston DA in a local lakefront cabin. Ben had been

a promising graduate student in history when he left school to come
back home and help care for his mother, whose Alzheimer's has been
getting worse. Ben's dad, Claude, is the former police chief and
Ben takes a job with the department to give himself something to do.
Given his family, he is quickly made chief, one of the youngest in
the country, and has a fairly liberal attitude to the dispensation
of law and order. He certainly isn't ready for a homicide investigation
and the other investigators are fairly condescending to him. For some
reason, though, he feels a need to stay involved and, with the help of
a retired Boston police detective, John Kelly, he is tutored in the
workings of a real investigation.

Evidence seems to point to a drug dealer, Harold Braxton, who has been
on the radar screens of detectives in the Mission Flats area for many
years, but who has managed to avoid having any charges stick to him.
About 10 years earlier, Braxton was the main suspect in the shooting death
of a Boston policeman during a drug raid, but a complicated series of
incidents lead to the case being dismissed. Now, once again, Braxton is
one of the main suspects in the killing of Bob Danziger, the DA, who might
have been digging into the earlier crime, intending to re-open the investigation.

This was a great, compelling story, with a lot of insider information on how
the police work, particularly in setting up controlled buys, and so forth.
We are schooled in the workings of a major investigation, as well as the
political issues that run a case, along with Ben, who is deceptively naive.
Ben has several secrets of his own that come out in the course of the
investigation and prove to be potential bombshells. The ending, in particular,
is quite a surprise and requires us to completely revise our understanding of
Ben. He's a complicated character and, ultimately, not particularly likeable.
I don't think this will be the first in a series of Ben Truman mysteries.

Still, Landay is a great writer and this is a memorable first novel. If you
like Lehane's Kenzie/Gennaro series, you'll probably like this, too. Highly
recommended.

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4.0 out of 5 stars There is power here, Jun 7 2004
By 
John Bowes (Oxford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Mission Flats (Hardcover)
Although two infamous Boston search warrant cases fuel the plot(as also "The Cinderella Affidavit"), it is the family scenes that carry real power. The ending is a not-unexpected twist, and the author may have tried too many plot elements, but he shows real potential and his next work is anxiously awaited.
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3.0 out of 5 stars disappointing, Mar 1 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Mission Flats (Hardcover)
From the other Amazon reviews I expected a better novel. This one toys with the reader. The story is a series of well-written vignettes, but the package as a whole doesn't make sense. I think the author wrote it to make various points, but failed to write a coherent, believable story.
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