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A writer turned P.I. investigates the murder of a forgotten ex-convict while coming to terms with personal tragedy....
I keep a list of authors. Well, make that "lists," actually. There's one in my wallet and one in my Daytimer and one on my laptop and one on my desktop, and one of these days I'll get 'em all organized. They're all made up of authors who wrote books I really enjoyed; I've got their names down so I won't miss their next efforts. Then there's a list I carry around in my head, a list of authors whose names I know almost as well as my own, so I don't need to write them down. Those would be my 'A' List. It has names on it like Parker and Burke and Leonard who have been writing forever. There are a few names, like Buffa and Meltzer, that haven't been writing all that long but who made the list fairly quickly. And now, joining that esteemed group of scribes with A WELL-KNOWN SECRET, is Jim Fusilli.
Fusilli, a music critic for The Wall Street Journal, only recently began writing novels.
His first novel, CLOSING TIME, was a surprisingly confident work, and introduced Terry Orr, a writer and historian turned private investigator following the tragic, senseless deaths of his wife and infant son. The minor flaws of that novel --- the letters Orr wrote to his dead wife, which occasionally interrupted the flow of the novel, and the almost too-cute precociousness of Bella, his pre-teen daughter --- are absent from A WELL-KNOWN SECRET. Using post-9/11 Manhattan as both a backdrop and a participant, Fusilli presents Orr as a character who is grievously affected by tragedies visited upon the family and the city he loves, as a character who is damaged but who nonetheless endures.
Fusilli, seemingly overnight, has smoothed out the few rough edges of CLOSING TIME, with the result being that A WELL-KNOWN SECRET contains prose as compelling as any you will read this year. Fusilli seamlessly melds Orr's personal and professional life, injecting a potential romantic interest into Orr's life as a missing person case he becomes involved with goes horribly wrong.
Orr is retained by a woman to locate her daughter, Sonia Salgado who recently has been released from a 30-year jail term for the robbery and murder of a jewel merchant. Orr locates Salgado easily enough, but his work brings no comfort to Salgado's mother as her daughter has been brutally murdered. Feeling that he must provide some sense of closure for his client Orr begins to investigate the circumstances of her murder as well as the events which led to her arrest, trial and conviction three decades ago.
Orr follows a twisted trail, which leads back to the New York City of the 1970s. He learn of a robbery scheme that went horribly wrong and how in a cover-up scheme an innocent, mentally simple young woman bore the brunt of the punishment. The real perpetrators continue to go to any length to cover up the crime. Orr is warned off of his investigation by persons known and unknown, expected and unexpected, and soon finds that he cannot turn his back on anyone. Orr, however, is not above a preemptive strike or three.
On a parallel track, Bella, now fourteen, has blossomed into a beautifully aware young woman, the type of person that we would all hope that our child would come to be. Orr feels as if he has somehow let her down, as if he has been inadequate in the face of the tragedy they have shared; yet, when one beholds Belle it is unspoken, but obvious, that he has done a magnificent job of performing an impossible task.
Fusilli additionally pulls off the neat trick of making the reader, if not Orr, fall totally in love with Julie Giada, an assistant district attorney who will hopefully be a larger presence in future novels. And while Fusilli has created a neatly complex, but easy-to-follow mystery in A WELL-KNOWN SECRET, some of his best writing occurs near the conclusion of his novel when Orr, Giada, Bella, and Orr's burned-out buddy Diddio attend a music critics' award ceremony. Fusilli's ability to slice into and out of the glue and matter that comprise relationships as they rise, fall and coalesce is simply breathtaking. At the same time, Fusilli's descriptions of Manhattan are so subtly dead-on and compelling that after reading A WELL-KNOWN SECRET the reader will feel compelled to walk the same streets as Orr simply to again savor the flavor of the novel in real-world time.
Fusilli, with A WELL-KNOWN SECRET, has fulfilled --- and exceeded --- the promise of CLOSING TIME. At the same time, the depth of his talent and ability becomes obvious with each turn of the page. That he will get the attention and respect he deserves in short order is a foregone conclusion. Very highly recommended.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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