The murder of two Philadelphia policemen in 1965 resonates through the decades and into the present in Duane Swierczynski’s impressive, intricately constructed Revolver, a twist-filled saga of family loyalties and civic corruption ... What he discovers destroys his marriage and family life, if not his career, and turns him into 'an emotionless golem' ...is a generation-hopping story, told in alternating chapters that skip between the ’60s, the ’90s and now. This challenging structure is well sequenced to maximize suspense, as old and new cases coalesce in unexpected ways ...Mr. Swierczynski’s innovative, life-affirming novel also affords the traditional pleasures of a police procedural, including humor.
A policeman gunned down in a bar. A homicide detective stalking an ex-con. A forensic scientist who can’t let the murder go. All members of the same family separated by 50 years and compelled by a murder that that has ripped through the generations ... In Revolver, Swierczynski crafts a beautiful and heartbreaking tale of how a single act of horror can echo through the generations tearing up families and destroying lives far removed from the act itself ...a style reminiscent of Hammett...in the hands of Swierczynski, it becomes an instant classic. A tale of families, duty, and darkness that is utterly compelling, Revolver is sure to turn the heads of everyone who loves thrillers, procedurals, and historical fiction alike.
Duane Swieczynski has created a great historical fiction/cop novel set in Philadelphia and spanning three generations. The story begins in the race-troubled 1960s, 1965 to be exact, when blacks and whites battled in the streets of many major cities ... Swierczynski does a masterful job of moving back and forth in time, capturing the temper of each era — the venues and societal norms. His characters are unique and multifaceted and the investigations he devises are very authentic ...grit and grime of big city policing and politics are on full display, making this a compelling read.
...if you read sequential art stories (and you should), you more than likely have encountered and enjoyed his work –– but Revolver, as George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Jerome Brailey would say, tears the roof off the sucker ...is a trilogy contained in one well-written novel of just a little over 300 pages, a mystery done right that is perfect in every way. Each section is divided into three parts, stretching over three generations and a half-century ... Each section advances the timeline of each part, giving the reader little breadcrumbs of clues and hints of mystery to follow, which you will, right to the end, while reading as fast as you possibly can. It’s a tantalizing mystery full of interesting characters, major and minor ... Anyone who has ever celebrated a holiday with their dysfunctional family will find much to love here, mystery aficionado or otherwise.
When two partners, one black and one white, are gunned down in a working-class Philly bar, a low-level holdup man is presumed to be the killer, though there's never enough evidence to convict him. Paroled 30 years later for another crime, the man comes under the scrutiny of Jim Walczak, the dead white cop's son, now a cop himself ... The novel follows a pattern of setting successive chapters in 1965, 1995, and 2015, the protagonist changing in each. For this to really work, each chapter would have to feed effortlessly into the next instead of feeling like an interruption, which they too often do here ...though the book is about a city riven by racial conflict, there's not nearly enough about the dead black cop and his family ... Though this novel is dotted with fine details, its ambitious structure gets in the way of narrative momentum.
Edgar-finalist Swierczynski skillfully juggles three interrelated plot lines set decades apart in this complex whodunit ... In 1995, Stan’s son, Jim, a Philadelphia PD homicide detective, looks into the rape-murder of magazine fact checker Kelly Farrace, a case that attracts the interest of a City Hall eager for a quick resolution. In 2015, Jim’s daughter, Audrey Kornbluth, returns home from Houston to attend the unveiling of a plaque memorializing the 1965 slayings. Audrey’s on the verge of flunking out of Criminal Scene Investigator school, but she hits on the idea of reinvestigating the 50-year-old murders, a choice that not everyone in her family supports. Well-defined characters and a clever mystery more than compensate for an ending that ties up the loose ends a bit too neatly.
