The Silver Gun

Lane Sanders, the appealing 23-year-old narrator of this uneven series launch set in 1930s New York City, has become the top assistant to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and is thus in the thick of her boss’s efforts to improve the city and eradicate the lingering corrupt influences of Tammany Hall. Lane is haunted by disturbing dreams involving an ice-skating accident and a silver gun, which cross over into reality when she’s accosted by a man bearing such a weapon. The man, a thug in the employ of gangsters, passes on a veiled threat to La Guardia that could “shake up the city.” The independent Lane displays impressive management skills, and Chandlar (The Christmas Journalist) does a good job of evoking the period (“a time of Depression-defying wit, art, and innovation,” as she comments in an author’s note), but a predictable romantic subplot doesn’t add any depth to her lead’s character, and the action builds to a formulaic climax as Lane desperately strives to avert disaster. Awkward prose (“His bravado of a second ago started to run like a frightened deer”) doesn’t help. Agent: Jill Grosjean, Jill Grosjean Literary. (Sept.)