You will be hard pressed to find a traditional noir mystery on today’s bestsellers list, but there was a time when the bleak subgenre dominated the pop-culture landscape. The list of traditional hallmarks–a conflicted protagonist, a morally-bankrupt setting–is well established, but simply adhering to the pre-established template does not guarantee success. That said, in the hands of a skilled writer, a noir mystery has the potential to captivate and entertain, a point exemplified by Bob Mantel’s THE VELVET BADGE: A New York Noir. Set in New York during the 1970s, the tale transports readers back to a time when the Big Apple was practically rotten to the core. The story centers on The Umbrella Man, a seedy nightclub (teeming with JFK memorabilia) owned by the equally shady Donny Damon. Damon’s purported ties to the fall of Camelot’s golden son notwithstanding, The Umbrella Man serves as the backdrop for a handful of noir-tinged tales featuring a cast of tragically unforgettable characters. Be it the complicated affair between an up-and-coming singer (Sadasia Trayne) and an ambitious television exec (Capers Greenbergér), or the tortured detective (Ellia Chase) who struggles to find the line between justice and self-preservation, THE VELVET BADGE is a master class in storytelling.
Key to this is Mantel’s depiction of New York. Whether or not this version of NYC ever truly existed is beside the point–Mantel’s cinematic scene setting paints an arresting picture of a city that some readers may remember seeing in their favorite Martin Scorsese film. When an author has the ability to transform ‘a simple stroll to the car’ into “Chase tossed a few personal items in an elf-print bag and quick-marched her grim, tired self down to a quiet corner of the One Police Plaza garage and a concrete slab marked “CHIEF,” one can’t help but feel like a bystander watching the scene unfold from across the street. The large ensemble deserves similar praise. Confusion is always a risk when giving equal billing to such a large cast, especially when every character seems to break in the same direction (bad). Fortunately, even with a handful of interwoven story-arcs, every character (and their accompanying path to self-destruction) is firmly established by the novel’s climax.
Given the confident writing surrounding the meticulously crafted (and remarkably coherent) plot, it’s difficult to believe that THE VELVET BADGE is author Bob Mantel’s debut. Yes, this is categorically a noir, but lurking just beneath all that doom and gloom is a pronounced satirical edge that imbues the novel with an undeniably fresh feel. Of course, the throwback title and cover may work against THE VELVET BADGE finding a home on a bookstore endcap, but then again, books of this quality rarely do.
Elevated by a satisfying blend of hard-boiled suspense and subtle hints of satire, Bob Mantel’s THE VELVET BADGE: A New York Noir is a stunning debut from a must-read author.
~James Weiskittel for IndieReader