With Chasing the Dragon, Domenic Stansberry—the acclaimed writer of modern noir—introduces a new hardboiled series set in San Francisco. In this, the series opener, Stansberry tells a story written in clear homage to the masters of the genre, yet with an original, breathtaking voice all his own.
A complicated, shadowy man in disgrace, Dante Mancuso leads a double life. Lately, though, the line he walks has become razor thin.
Dante works for The Company, a nebulous security organization operating just this side of the law. Dante wants out, but it's a hard life to leave behind-rich with its own seductions, its own dark attractions.
His latest assignment sends him back to his old North Beach neighborhood in San Francisco. First rendezvous? His estranged father's funeral in the dying heart of Little Italy. Here Dante picks up the strands of his old life and soon finds himself playing an even more elaborate game, a game that involves not just his duplicitous family, but also his ex-fiancée and his former colleagues in the San Francisco Police Department.
Adept as he is, Dante can not play this game forever, pursued by the laconic Frank Ying, a Chinese detective anxious to know the secrets Dante hides. Caught between the sinister imperatives of The Company and the ghosts of his own past, Dante treads a harrowing path to a confrontation more lethal-and more surprising-than he could have imagined.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
May 1, 2024 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781429909204
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781429909204
- File size: 1591 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from September 27, 2004
Edgar-finalist Stansberry's strong, no-nonsense crime novel, the first in a new series, pulls few punches. In San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, Giovanni Mancuso is dying of cancer, but he knows somebody is stalking him. Just before his killer smothers him with a pillow, Mancuso mumbles, "My son will track you down... my son, the cop, my son..." The son, Dante Mancuso, is working in New Orleans for "the company," a nebulous organization that operates just this side of the law. A representative of the company, Anita Blonde, tells him to return to San Francisco for his father's funeral. There he infiltrates a heroin-smuggling operation, which leads to murder and the opportunity to avenge his father's death. Well researched, with ample local color—most of the action takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area—this is a gripping novel with unforeseeable plot twists and some incendiary scenes. Stansberry (The Last Days of Il Duce
) has a fine eye for detail that prevents his often grim narrative from becoming merely ghoulish; he evokes the nightmarish criminal underworld without making it too depressing and his protagonist is believable and strangely admirable, even when disposing of a body in San Francisco Bay. This gritty, noirish exercise in murder and drugs feels uncomfortably like the real thing. Agent, Fred Hill. (Oct. 29)
FYI:
Stansberry has also been a Hammett Prize finalist. -
June 1, 2004
A hardboiled series debut set in San Francisco's North Beach by the Edgar Award finalist (for The Spoiler). Stansberry lives in San Francisco.Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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October 1, 2004
Sent to his San Francisco hometown by the "company" to infiltrate a drug-smuggling operation possibly involving his uncle, ex-homicide detective Dante Mancuso first attends the funeral of his father. Though cancer claimed him, the old man thought someone was trying to kill him, and "someone" does kill Dante's uncle. Police tap Dante for the murder, but he's able to complete his assignment. Noir fans will enjoy this new series opener's effective blend of police procedure, covert agendas, personal vendetta, and previous unsolved crime, splayed out in changing Italian/Chinese neighborhoods. Edgar Award finalist Stansberry (The Last Days of Il Duce) lives in San Francisco. [See Mystery Prepub, LJ 6/1/04; coming in November from Hard Case Crime is another Stansberry noir crime novel, The Confession.-Ed.]Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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