Start Shooting

Edgar-finalist Newton follows his acclaimed debut, Calumet City (2008), with a gritty and complex novel of gangland alliances, police corruption, and a tragic murder that continues to haunt decades later. Police officers Bobby Vargas and his brother, Ruben, were brought up in the tough, gang-infested streets of Chicago’s Four Corners neighborhood. Back in 1982, a 13-year-old Irish American girl, Coleen Brennan, was found raped and murdered, her apparent assailants a couple of neighborhood thugs, one of whom was convicted and executed. Bobby and the slain girl, who lived next door at the time, had been involved in an innocent yet forbidden romance. Now, a local newspaper reporter has been writing a series of pieces implicating the Vargas brothers in the murder. Meanwhile, Arleen Brennan, Coleen’s twin sister, who’s returned to Chicago with some baggage of her own, dreams of finally becoming a successful actress, at any cost. A somewhat silly subplot involving WWII-era biological terrorism is Newton’s only misstep in an otherwise excellent effort. (Jan.)