Book Review - Faces of the Gone by Brad Parks

Synopsis:  A shooting can rattle a city, even if it’s gun-choked Newark. Investigative reporter Carter Ross finds himself with gruesome front page news: four bodies in a vacant lot, each with a single bullet hole in the back of the head. In a haste to calm residents, local police leak a story to Carter’s colleagues at the Newark Eagle- Examiner, calling the murders revenge for a bar stick-up. But while Carter may not come from the streets, he knows a few things about Newark’s ghettos. And he knows the story the police are pushing just doesn’t make sense.

The paper prints the police’s version anyway—under the journalistic theory that it’s better to be first with the news than factual—leaving Carter all but alone to find the real story. He enlists the aide of Tina Thompson, the paper’s smoking hot city editor, to run interference for him at the office; Tommy Hernandez, the paper’s gay Cuban intern, to help him with legwork on the street; and Tynesha Dales, a local stripper, to take him to Newark’s underside. Soon, Carter learns the four victims have one connection after all, and this knowledge will put him in the path of one very ambitious killer.

First Line:  "With all the vacant lots in Newark, New Jersey - and there were thousands of them - the Director could afford to be picky."

Random Quote:  "We drove in comfortable silence for a while and I felt pleased with my progress.  In order to tell any story successfully, you have to cross the threshold where your source stops looking at you like a reporter and starts seeing a fellow human being.  I thought - I hoped - I had just reached that point with Tynesha."

Review:  I don't know a whole lot about Newark although I admire Cory Booker, their mayor.  This is the second crime book I've read that was set in Newark and I still don't know much about it.  I like a strong sense of place and this book just doesn't deliver that providing, instead, a sort of generic inner-city setting.  That, ultimately, is the fundamental problem with the book - it's all sort of generic.  The intrepid reporter, the queeny intern, the lusty editor, the lippy stripper - every one of these characters is generic and stereotyped.  How disappointing is that?

Newark, NJ - Image via Wikipedia

I read a fair amount of genre fiction, particularly thrillers, and this fits into its category in a completely generic (there's that word again) and formulaic way.  Parks breaks no new ground, although he doesn't insult my intelligence, either.  The story is decently plotted, but easy to figure out and mostly I didn't really care who did it or why.  A fairly entertaining light read, but not an author I'll look for again.

FTC Disclosure:  San Leandro Public Library

Rating:  White