Review of
What
the Dead Men Say, by Ed Gorman ISBN 0312878001
Five out of five stars
It all starts with a factory closing its’ doors and
throwing many men out of work and leads through extreme grief, a powerful and
consuming desire for revenge and finally a boy becoming a man. Although at the
end, he does not like the one he has become.
The setting is
far western Iowa in the last years of the nineteenth century. Clarice Ryan is a
thirteen-year-old girl and she is taking a deposit from her father into a bank
in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She is a regular known by all the employees and she is
always given a mint as a reward for being such a regular and valued customer. However, this day is different. She walks in
when a robbery is taking place. There is a brief gun battle between the police
and the robbers and Clarice is shot and killed instantly. In an area of
ridiculous irony, while the robbers got away, they didn’t take a single dollar.
The robbers were all laid off from a buggy factory and were struggling to
survive financially.
It is years
later, and the three bank robbers had blended into society, two of them getting
married. All three have tried to forget their past, but it is always with them.
Septemus Ryan is Clarice’s father and he has brooded over her death and plotted
his revenge. He sent a Pinkerton man to
investigate and that man was able to determine the identities of the three
robbers.
Septemus and
his nephew James ride into the town where the three men live, setting off a
chain of events that will lead to a confrontation between Septemus, the robbers
and the local sheriff, an honest and just man. Septemus is by this time quite
mad, although he genuinely cares for his nephew and wants him to become a man.
James has been raised by his mother, a good woman that emphasizes activities
more commonly associated with girls.
Even though it
is clear what the end point will be every early in the book, the journey there
is very well laid out. While there are some noble characteristics in nearly all
of the characters, from the robbers to the insane Septemus to the teenage
prostitute Liz, most are dominated by the bad things in their lives. This is a
book without heroes, it is dominated by tragedy.
