Mark Kennedy has been in jail for the past ten years, after the former police detective killed five mob bosses and (accidentally) one police officers in an attempt to squash mob-related crime in his area for good. In prison, he gets letters passed to him by a guard, giving him names of fellow prisoners who have not been dealt with appropriately by the legal system for their crimes, and he finds one way or another to kill them, brutally and visibly. However, one day he is released into the custody of the FBI (specifically, an agent whose daughter’s rapist he killed), on condition that he assist them with a project. He agrees, and finds himself working as a security manager for a casino called the Uptown, the center of organized crime in Vermont, with a team of people he has worked with before, preparing to host an auction of kidnapped young women as sex slaves. However, his former partner, Will Sutherland, now a detective himself, is on the case, suspecting the Uptown of massive criminal activity and involvement with the sex trade, and he is deeply worried to see Kennedy show up on its staff. The situation is complicated by the fact that both are sleeping with, and using, the same woman, Jules Romano, who believes in Kennedy’s cause but is drawn to Sutherland’s integrity and good heart.
This is a vigorous, action-packed novel that leads the reader in challenging ethical directions. We are asked to contemplate how much force may be used, how much suffering permitted to exist or even inflicted, and how many lives may be taken in order to stop a greater evil. Both main characters, Kennedy and Sutherland, are compelling, both deeply convinced of their own belief system, and both are shaken by the other’s actions. Some of the minor characters, too, struggle with the morality of their actions while others are firmly, even smugly, convinced of their own rightness – the contrast between various characters’ reactions to the key moral question of the book shows the reader a great deal about their personalities without ever having to spell anything out in tedious detail. The book itself never drags, and the plot is full of suspense and activity.
However, the writing style can be a bit clumsy and stilted at times, and the book could benefit from the services of a good editor (not so much for grammatical errors, but for sentence flow and smoothness of style). The ending is a bit unsatisfying and leaves a few loose ends open, which perhaps fits the moral grey areas of the story. The book is also not for the squeamish – there’s a good bit of violence and bloodshed, graphically portrayed.
UPTOWN is a gritty, no-holds-barred crime story that doesn’t slow down or shy away from hard questions.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader