New Book Alert: No One Runs Faster Than A Bullet by Andrew Davies; Short But Intriguing Look At Kansas City's Criminal Underworld

 

New Book Alert: No One Runs Faster Than A Bullet by Andrew Davies; Short But Intriguing Look At Kansas City's Criminal Underworld

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I would like to apologise for the long forced break in my blog. I had Covid last month and was sick for two weeks. Afterwards, I had to make adjustments on my glasses because my eyes bothered me. I am better now and have plenty of reviews backed up!

Now on with the first:

 No one may run faster than a bullet, but that doesn't mean an author should write faster than one.

Andrew Davies' short novel, No One Runs Faster Than A Bullet has a very interesting premise in exploring the world of Kansas City's organized crime racket in the late 1920's. It has a potentially interesting roguish bunch of characters that would be fascinating to explore in the environment of deceit, decadence, and depravity. However, because of its short length, a fragment and a sketch of a brilliant idea is all we get. Because of Davies' desire to keep the book short, what is a great idea and concept comes across as shallow and underutilised.

We get some historical information in the opening pages by introducing the  ratification of the 18th Amendment and how it influenced the increase in  organized crime in various American cities such as Chicago, New York City, and Kansas City. 

While Chicago and New York's involvement in organized crime is widely known in pop culture, Kansas City is not as discussed. According to various sources, Kansas City began as a racketeering  center when the DiGiovanni brothers emigrated from Sicily and settled in Kansas City. Their organization rackets were controlled by John Lazia and given a free pass by corrupt politician, Teddy Pendergast. Kansas City was a prime location for illegal activity because of its central presence to various states.

In this milieu several people are featured: stock broker, Albert Carr who is right there when the Dow goes down on October, 1929, Ezra Cohen, a prizefighter who joined law enforcement, Owens, a Pinkerton detective with a bad temper and his violent partner, Anderson, Donovan, a pastor who sees sin everywhere even an attack by a dog, and Ezekiel, the District Attorney, and his wife, Laura who had been kidnapped a year prior. Behind the scenes is Shlomo Weintraub, head of the Weintraub Syndicate and the real strung puller in just about everything going on in Kansas City. 

It's a pretty intriguing roster of characters Davie writes about. The majority of them are amoral and dishonest, even when they claim to be on the right side of the law. They don't mind doing things like getting on the take or using excessive force. There are also some interesting touches with the characters such as Owens and Anderson taking part in a sting operation and Laura still having PTSD from her kidnapping.

There are also many characters who are no doubt based on real people. Weintraub clearly is similar to the real life DiGiovanni brothers and Lazia. Donovan has more than a whiff of the real life Hellfire and Brimstone pastor's of the 1920's and '30's like Billy Sunday.

 Among the most recognizable figures is Laura who is clearly based on Nell Donnelly Read, a Kansas City clothing designer and wife of a prominent politician who was kidnapped. Read's husband contacted Lazia to help him find and search for her. Read was returned, but she later divorced her husband and married his law partner who helped engineer her rescue. Knowing that puts a dismal foreshadowing in Laura and Ezekiel's marriage with the realization that their real life counterpart's marriage didn't last.

No One Runs Faster Than A Bullet could be better. Many of the problems are undone by too many fascinating characters and not enough pages to deal with then and the plot. No sooner are characters introduced than they take part in a shakedown of various criminals, without really concerning ourselves with who they are and what their stakes are in this struggle. Many of the illegal activities are either too quick or discussed after the fact, so we don't have much time to build up the activities. 

Also, this is too large a cast and too many plot lines going on to keep track of in a short novel that is less than 100 pages. If Davie had just involved one of the crimes and had only a few characters it might have worked. Even better, he could have easily expanded the short novel into a longer one putting more emphasis on the characters that we only sort of get to know before Tommy guns are drawn. 

With some extra work and characterization, No One Runs Faster Than A Bullet could make a crime novel that would place Kansas City as a memorable criminal underworld setting. As it is however, it promises to be a great shot but ends up missing the mark.