New Book Alert: Redlined: A Novel of Boston by Richard W. Wise; Thrilling Mystery Explores The Importance of Community

 New Book Alert: Redlined: A Novel of Boston by Richard W. Wise; Thrilling Mystery Explores The Importance of Community

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Redlining is when federal, state, or municipal governments selectively raise prices within certain communities. This causes stricter criteria and outright denial of goods and services, primarily in poor minority-led communities escalating disadvantages within the community. It was particularly used in the housing industry by mortgage companies to suppress minority populations from receiving home loans to buy homes in other neighborhoods and deny funding to improve their homes. It is a classist and racist policy which ,despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968's attempts to challenge it, is still very evident in many cities causing segregation in all but name and spacial isolation against minority communities. 

Richard W. Wise's novel, Redlined: A Novel of Boston, is a suspenseful and effective mystery thriller. However, what stands out in the book is the theme of community and how members gather together during times of trouble and how they combat redlining. 

The novel is set primarily in the Jamaica Plains district of Boston in 1974. Community organizers are investigating a series of  suddenly raised housing and property prices and suspiciously started fires in the Jamaica Plains area. Community worker, Sandy Morgan investigates one of the buildings that is about to be torched when she is caught by some unidentified dangerous characters and burned alive inside the building.

Her colleague, Jedediah Flynt, hires Harvard grad student,,Alex Jordan, as a researcher, to help him communicate with community members about the redlining situation and to find out what happened to the burnings and who was really responsible for Sandy's death.

Redlining is one half mystery and one half social commentary and New excells at writing both. The mystery is pretty solid as Alex and Jed investigate possible leads to solve the mystery behind Sandy's death. Things get pretty tense when they learn that there is a conspiracy involving certain wealthy Bostonians, political figures, and organized crime members. Like in any true conspiracy novel, there are plenty of moments of slamming doors and abrupt endings of phone conversatios before Jed and Alex learn the truth that these people don't mind sacrificing whole communities and residents for their own gain.

There are some exciting moments such as when Jed has a one on one fight with an assassin using his skills as a Vietnam vet to take on a much younger and more fit man. Another exciting moment occurs when Alex is kidnapped by the same people who did away with Sandy. 

Since we read the points of view of the protagonists and antagonists, the Reader is ahead of Alex and Jed. This effect allows suspense to build when Jed or Alex confides in characters that are revealed to be involved, such as Monsignor Bendetti, a man of the cloth who is not exactly holy. He acts smooth and caring while in previous chapters, he accepted blood money from corrupt businessmen "for the good of the church," of course.

The multi points of view also reveal the hypocrisy of the more antagonistic characters and the exact means that they use to intimate the poorer community members. Sometimes they use violence, but more often their means are much more subtle. For example, Banking Commissioner Louise Winthrop Gray insists that there is no such thing as redlining. From her privileged Boston Brahmin viewpoint, she has never experienced such a thing so to her, it doesn't exist. This elitism is very real, especially to Readers who have experienced such behavior in real life.

What stands out more than the suspense is the importance of community and how the residents of Jamaica Plains work together to combat redlining and the degradation of their neighborhood. Jed is a leader who is able to bring diverse members together and visualize such possibilities. He recognizes each community member's contributions to organize and save the space around them. 

Alex is an outsider from a wealthier background but is very politically active and inspired to help others. She is new to community organization but is able to prove herself by researching various details and interacting with Jamaica Plains' residents.

They aren't the only ones who help build the Jamaica Plains community. Sheldon Trapp, a Methodist minister from Chicago wants to implement many of the same strategies that he used there for Boston and has experienced first hand the ends results of a redlined community. Willie-Joe Patrizzi, an attorney, is able to use his street smart attitude and legalese as a bridge between the people in Jamaica Plains and the wealthy Bostonians. Mary Kavanaugh, an Irish-American housewife, has plenty of brilliant ideas such as the concept of greenlining, getting neighborhood residents to move their savings accounts to a bank that will specifically lend money for Jamaica Plains.

The loyalty that the characters have for Jamaica Plains shows a different side to these so called dangerous neighborhoods. These neighborhoods aren't born that way. They become that way because of systemic racism and classicism leading the citizens to become desensitized. The characters in Redlined, just like real life counterparts, recognize something of value within that community. They feel that loyalty and friendship through adversity and pull together to fight against that adversity.

Redlined is a great novel that explores the themes of community involvement and builds an exciting suspenseful thriller plot around it.