Three Boys Missing by James A. Jack

January 1, 2024

Three Boys Missing by James A. Jack

On Sunday, October 16, 1955, three boys from the Jefferson Park neighborhood in northwest Chicago went to a movie at a downtown movie theater. They never returned home and were found murdered two days later. James Jack was one of the original detectives assigned to search for the missing children, and he details the case. The investigators were under pressure to solve the case quickly - little did they know that it would take 40 years to bring the killer to justice.

I live just north of Jefferson Park and I know the areas in this book very well. This crime occurred in the pre-Internet era, and police work was very different in the 1950s than it is today. Now there are surveillance cameras everywhere and there have been great advances in DNA testing. It does seem like the police spent a lot of time chasing down pointless leads. A number of the officers had fixed or pre-conceived ideas about who committed the crime - one of the persistent ideas was that a gang of teenagers had killed the boys. Most of the suspects brought in for questioning were guilty of something, just not of murdering the three boys. One witness starts filming the scene and a police officer is disgusted and confiscates the film - they'd be shocked that in 2023, everyone has a camera on their cell phone and people record everything. With law enforcement agencies not cooperating or communicating with each other, it was a wonder than any crimes were solved.

Milwaukee Avenue where much of the action in the book takes place, in the 1950s

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

 September 12, 2020

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi lives by the sea in a vast house filled with statues.  There is only one other inhabitant that he refers to as the Other.  Piranesi has contact with him only twice a week, when the Other issues his latest request for Piranesi's help with his research.  Piranesi's life work is to map the vast halls and chambers of the place where he lives, drawing the statues along with his maps, and to chart the tides.  But when the Other warns him about a third person in the house, Piranesi begins to suspect that there is something going on that is not right.

I'm not even sure what to say about this book.  It is vastly different from Clarke's previous novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.  The beginning of the novel is very confusing, and while the story does come together eventually, it takes about 200 pages to get there.  There are also a lot of things that aren't explained.  Not sure who I recommend this to, if anyone.  A reader would have to be a huge fan of speculative fiction to really enjoy it.  I admit it, I like books that have characters and a story line.

Piranesi knows that that is not his real name, it is just the name that it amuses the Other to call him.  Giovanni Batista Piranesi was an Italian artist who lived in the 18th century, known for his etchings of fictitious and fantastical prisons.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC in return for a review.