Dirty Air — Book Review

The Razzman is back! And I’m one happy camper.

The older I get the more I find myself reaching for a private detective mystery or a horror story for my reading entertainment.

In the broad crime fiction category, cozy mysteries, thrillers, and serial killers are all the rage. The lone gumshoe, relying on observation and ratiocination, has been more or less put out to pasture.

Which is a crying shame. The murder-solving shamus has been a staple of crime fiction ever since Sherlock Holmes walked on stage and popularized the genre.

Now, Holmes never called himself a private detective. He was a consulting detective. But not too many years passed before the moniker “private” was attached to detective in order to distinguish him from the “public” variety found in the police force.

From the late 1800s through the 1950s the private sleuth was king of the mystery and crime fiction roost. But that began to change in the 1960s as thrills and spills began to be more important then good old-fashioned deductive reasoning.

Today, the thriller is hot and the amateur sleuth of the cozy has replaced the private eye.

However, if you are like me and you prefer your sleuths to be of the private gumshoe variety, then I have good news for you: Joe Congel has published a new Tony Razzolito mystery.

Razzolito, aka the Razzman, is a modern-day gumshoe. He uses information sources, observation, and deductive reasoning to get the job done. There is an air of the hardboiled detective about him, but without the nihilism or pessimism usually associated with the hardboiled detective.

Joe Congel has, in effect, contemporized the hardboiled detective — and Tony Razzolito is the result.

Dirty Air is the third novel in the series. There is also a collection of short stories that fits between books one and two and provides a transition between the events of the first and second books.

Dirty Air is set against a backdrop of NASCAR and illegal street racing. Congel deftly gives you enough of a feel for the racing world without giving you information overload.

A NASCAR driver is murdered (or is he?) And his wife hires Tony and his partner Scott to investigate his death. From that point on, there are twists and turns, thrills and spills, evidence gathering, and deductive reasoning. In other words, a rollicking good mystery.

The central crime busting trio is comprised of Tony and his partner, Scott, and their buddy, Vinnie. The characters are colorful and easy to relate to. The minor characters are also living, breathing people. All of which makes for a very fun series.

Another aspect of Congel’s writing that I appreciate is the realistic pacing. The action continues to ratchet up as the book progresses, as the plot thickens.

Dirty Air, and all of the series, are highly recommended. Check out Joe Congel’s Amazon page — you don’t want to miss this action.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!