Terminal Island: A Jack Liffey Mystery [Hardcover]

Thank goodness it's not Jack Liffey that's terminal! Here's a wonderful new book that takes us back to Jack's hometown. We even get to meet a family member of his that he's hidden up to now. It's almost impossible to put this book down once you start it. Be warned!

Jack Liffey is recouperating from a collapsed lung when an old friend--from his elementary school days--calls for a favor. Police Lieutenant Ken Steelyard has a problem. Someone is has grabbed a San Pedro youth, planted an explosive, and damaged the train set that is Steelyard's life. Since Liffey investigates missing children, maybe he can help. Against the advice of his doctor and girlfriend, Liffey accepts--and launches himself into a strange world where the clues are carefully scripted Japanese playing cards--with the kanji characters for 'no, no' stamped on them.

As Steelyard and Liffey investigate, the clues point back to the horrible days of World War II when Japanese-Americans were rounded up, sent to internment camps, and lost all of their possessions. Terminal Island, the small island that makes up a part of the port of Los Angeles/Long Beach, was once home to a thriving Japanese fishing community. Could someone be revenging himself for this long-ago dishonor? It hardly seems possible that an survivor of these American concentration camps could be terrorising modern Los Angeles, but there is definitely a connection.

Author John Shannon shines his powerful spotlight into San Pedro and Terminal Island--parts of Los Angeles that retain a part of their history despite the radical changes that Los Angeles imposes on itself regularly--and into the long-denied reality of American fear and injustice. Jack Liffey makes a wonderful hero--a man who cares, who wants to do what is right in a morally ambiguous world, and a man who struggles to make the world better for his daughter and her friends.

TERMINAL ISLAND is a powerfully moving story--with plenty of fast-paced action, thoughtful examination of the way the world works, and an ultimately positive message. I admit that coming from the San Pedro area made me suspicious at first--but Shannon won me over completely. I strongly recommend this book--even if you're not an Angeleno.

The great joy of "Terminal Island" is John Shannon's ability to address the many ethnic/socio-economic/generational schisms that make up Los Angeles without slowing the nimble pace of his narrative. As Jack Liffey struggles to catch the person responsible for a string of connected crimes, he falls for a police officer named Gloria Ramirez, a Native American who was raised by Latino parents who taught her to hate her own heritage. Liffey is forced to confront and eventually offer help to his viciously-bigoted father, Declan. But Liffey's Good Samaritan daughter believes that her newfound grandfather can discard his ugly beliefs by getting to know her African-American friends. Shannon also intersperses the chapters with entries from the perpetrator's diary, paralleling the investigation, giving us insight into the damaged soul's desire to redress old wrongs and bring honor back to his family that was "relocated" out of Terminal Island's once thriving Japanese fishing community during World War II. The result is a complex and compelling portrait of people linked by both place and past transgressions. In the end, we wonder if we can ever run from our former selves into a future where we are better people who can improve this world rather than tear it down. As Liffey tries to reason with the perpetrator of the crimes, he sounds as if he's trying to convince himself that forgiveness is, indeed, a great virtue: "[W]ar asks too much of a human being. They weren't bad people to start with, and most of them have healed. Time heals. Love heals. Work heals. The human mind is resilient, it finds a way." If Jack Liffey and his father are any guide, these words have truth at their core and there is hope for us all. (The full version of this review first appeared in The Elegant Variation: http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar)