Fiction, Mystery & Crime

White Shadow

Name: White Shadow
Author: Ace Atkins
ISBN: 9780425230541

by Ace Atkins

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Overview

Tampa, Florida, 1955: a city pulsing with Sicilian and Cuban gangsters, cigar factories, sweet rum, and violence. The bludgeoning death of retired kingpin Charlie Wall shocks the city and sends cops and reporters and associates scrambling to discover the truth. When the old White Shadow ruled the city, plenty of his enemies tried - and failed - to kill him. Now many are left wondering about the final hand of the old bootlegger and gambler. As the trail winds through neighborhoods rich and poor, enmeshing the innocent and corrupt alike all the way down to the streets and casinos of Havana, an extraordinary story of revenge, honor, and greed emerges. For Charlie Wall had his secrets, and he guarded them well. And those secrets could destroy a criminal empire and ignite a revolution.

The acclaimed creator of the Nick Travers mysteries combines fiction with meticulous historical fact to recreate the fascinating story of one of the most infamous murders in Florida history. Includes bonus audio interviews with people directly involved in the Charlie Wall murder case and the police interrogation of Mafia suspect Johnny Rivera. Unabridged. 2 MP3 CDs.

Synopsis

Publishers Weekly

One of the major achievements of Atkins's fictional account of the murder of former mob boss Charlie Wall, the White Shadow of the title, is his mesmerizing recreation of the steamy, dangerous, pulsating city of Tampa, Fla., circa 1955. Surprisingly, Dufris, a veteran of more than 250 audiobooks, selects a straightforward, unaccented and bland approach to the atmosphere-rich novel. The book's protagonist and narrator, reporter L.B. Turner, referred to as a "Virginian," has a New England burr rather than an Old South slur. When it comes to Mafia and Cuban gangsters, Dufris rises to the occasion with an assortment of properly gruff and/or Latin accents. The audio package improves on the novel with a bonus disk, where Atkins eloquently outlines the events that triggered his interest in a nearly 50-year-old murder and offers anecdotes about his research. Just as fascinating are his interviews with former newsmen Bob Turner and Leland Hawes and retired detective Ellis Clifton, men whose voices and memories, presumably recorded during the last few years, seem as vital as they were back in the day. Simultaneous release with the Putnam hardcover (Reviews, June 3). (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

About the Author, Ace Atkins

Ace Atkins is a Pulitzer Prize nominee and the author of seven novels, including his latest, Devil's Garden.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Library Journal

It's 1955, and the Ybor City area of Tampa is a melting pot of Cuban and Sicilian immigrants liberally laced with gangsters vying for control of the city's gambling, prostitution, drug, and liquor concessions. When vice don Charlie Wall, affectionately known as The White Shadow, is murdered gangland style in his home, all of Tampa takes notice. Atkins (Dirty South) has penned a compelling fictionalized history of the affair told from a variety of perspectives-those of the prime suspects, the investigating police detective, an investigative reporter for the Tampa Times, and an elusive Cuban girl who was a prime mover in the case. In a Tampa Confidential style, Atkins's latest cleaves close to the truth as revealed by police reports, court documents, newspaper articles, and interviews with those involved. Not your average whodunit, White Shadow is an intriguing expos of a crime-ridden city in the not-too-distant past. Recommended. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 1/06.]-Thomas Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A wild ride back to south Florida in the mid-1950s, when reporters were boozy, women were floozies, cops were for sale and stone killers managed somehow to be colorful. On Monday, April 15, 1955, person or persons unknown severely punished Charlie Wall, king of the bootleggers in his time, with a baseball bat and then slit his throat-a homicide never solved. This is the pivotal, real-life episode Atkins uses to spin his tale of murder, betrayal and revenge in tempestuous Tampa, a city once dubbed "Little Chicago." Mob hits then were as integral to the scene as senior-citizen ex-pats are now. So who rubbed the old man out? Was it Santo Trafficante, operations boss of that busy crime triangulation-Sicily to Tampa to Havana-who might have arranged the deed simply because he could? Or how about Johnny Rivera, a hood's hood, sullen, reptilian, unburdened by anything resembling a conscience. Had he become convinced that the old man had grown loose-lipped with age? Detective Ed Dodge, the anomalous cop without a price tag, likes Johnny for it. But then he likes Johnny for just about anything that is vicious, cold-blooded and fatal. On the periphery as the drama unfolds, a kind of Greek chorus, are the reporters: 26-year old J.B. Turner, serving Atkins as alter ego and narrator; and smart, beautiful, endlessly enigmatic Eleanor Charles, chief among them-sniffing at the action, ever alert for byline material, seemingly safe behind the shield of their notebooks. Until suddenly they aren't. Atkins (Dirty South, 2004, etc.) mutes his Nick Travers series, benching the blues-loving ex-footballer, for something much more ambitious. This is a big-time crime novel crammed with violence, sex and somepretty good writing makes it hard to put down.