Mobtown

Writing with the skill of Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy, but adding a noir twist all his own, Jack Kelly sets his new novel in Rochester, New York, in the hot summer of 1959. On the surface, Kelly's Rochester is staid and respectable; underneath it's as dark and glamorous as Los Angeles in the 1940s. The city is dominated by gangsters and home to a cold-eyed private detective named Ike Van Savage.Enter the stunning and seductive Vicky Petrone. Fearful that her husband is out to kill her, she hires Van Savage to get the goods on him. One catch: The husband is also the top guy in the local mob. That makes the case, as Ike puts it, a little "delicate." He takes the assignment despite its dangers -- perhaps because of them -- and finds himself drawn into a murky world of seduction, suspicion, and violence.