Boneyards - Softcover

R.wright Campbell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340577320 ISBN 13: 9780340577325

Publisher: Coronet Books, 1993

Synopsis

Set in Chicago, amid the ethnic neighbourhoods, jazz clubs and Irish bars. Police sergeant Ray Sharkey is a law unto himself, using it for his own ends. But when a candidate in the mayoral election focuses on police corruption, Sharkey becomes the target. By the author of "The Junkyard Dog".

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

Best known for his humorous series featuring Chicago sewer inspector Jimmy Flannery (The Cat's Meow, etc.), Campbell here turns his considerable skills to the story of corrupt cop Ray Sharkey, a man whose entire life consists of doing the wrong things for the right reasons. The opening pages reveal that Sharkey is on the take and will be convicted and imprisoned for murder. However, the subsequent depiction of his self-destructive path to that point takes second place to a classic portrait of Chicago polities and political maneuvering. Sharkey began taking bribes to cover medical bills for his retarded daughter and, later, for his wife, who is dying of cancer in an expensive sanitarium; the black whore who has become his mistress adds to the financial burden. Even though he knows he is being set up as a fall guy in the politicized climate following the 1976 death of Mayor Richard Daley, Ray presses on, sure he can outsmart or outcharm his enemies. Adding to the book's appeal is this remarkable character's family, a fascinating microcosm of big-city Irish Catholic life. Darker than most of Campbell's work, this strong novel is nevertheless leavened with humor, notably a hilarious dissertation on the various uses of a famous 12-letter obscenity.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

One special relationship initiates Chicago detective Ray Sharkey's decline into compromise and self-destruction. Campbell, author of The Junkyard Dog (Signet, 1986) and Juice ( LJ 4/1/89), portrays the man behind the facade.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Coronet Books
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0340577320
• ISBN 13: 9780340577325
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352