Michael Raleigh, author of the Paul Whelan mysteries, has written what will hopefully be the start of a new series set in 1970s Chicago. Peerless Detective follows Billy Fox, a vet from small-town Michigan, to Chicago in search of an old girlfriend. In a series of events, he ends up apprenticing in a detective firm, eventually getting his own cases. However, just like Michigan Avenue, there's more than meets the eye to his new circumstances. One can pretty much pace out where Billy goes in his travels, even if some of the names on the buildings have changed. Highly atmospheric and character-driven, this is great Chicago noir.
Chicago's political machinations have long fascinated writers and the general public alike. The Detective, by James Patrick Hunt, takes place in the days of the Jane Byrne campaign and the snowstorm that brought her to power. Two detectives are assigned to a multiple murder on an el platform. They don't like each other, mostly because the rookie is put on the case solely because he is Jewish and the most famous victim was an Anti-Defamation League-type activist. This is more than your standard police procedural: there are digressions about Charles Manson and the biography of a Polish Holocaust survivor. The leading suspect turns up conveniently dead, but that is hardly the end of the case in this compelling and suspenseful mystery.
Life Sentence by David Ellis is a twisty puzzle of a book, dealing more with Illinois politics than Chicago ones. Jon Soliday, who narrates the book, is legal counsel to his friend's gubernatorial campaign when he gets a blackmail note going back to the 1970s when Soliday and his buddy were teenagers. It doesn't take long for Soliday to be involved in three murder investigations on top of the wheeling and dealing of politics in the Land of Lincoln. Crosses, double crosses and an unreliable narrator make this plot-driven book juicy fun.
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