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Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2010 > April > 19 > Entry
Warning: “The Third Rail” is electric…
“The Third Rail” by Michael Harvey (Knopf, 285 pages, $24.95)
Crime fiction can be a rather location specific literary genre. Many crime writers tend to prefer certain metropolitan settings for their novels; locales such as the Los Angeles freeways or the steel canyons of New York City. Sometimes location exerts a power that is as crucial as any other element in the story.
The novelist Michael Harvey sets his stories in Chicago. His latest, “The Third Rail,” could not have been set anyplace else — this book is 100 percent Windy City inspired. This is his third book featuring the private investigator Michael Kelly.
“The Third Rail” begins in classic crime novel style, with a murder. A crowd is waiting for the elevated train to arrive. An unfortunate woman is randomly chosen by a killer who hopes to be observed as he commits the act. Kelly witnesses the crime and chases the shooter.
The killer wanted Kelly to chase him. That was all part of the plan. This criminal is a serial killer who has been recruited to embark on a shooting spree that will inspire fear in the hearts of Chicagoans. Kelly is drawn into the investigation after he witnesses that first shooting.
The killer targets more victims. As the carnage escalates, our private investigator begins to sense something almost personal about these crimes. What could they have to do with him? When Kelly was 9 years old he was riding on an elevated train when something tragic happened. Could there be some possible connection between that accident and this current crime spree? Some odd coincidences make him wonder.
Kelly gets ensnared in a sinister web that only he can untangle. Meanwhile, beneath the city a terrorist pauses along a desolate stretch of subway tracks to unscrew a light bulb from the wall. He switches that bulb with one of his own. The new bulb contains weaponized anthrax.
He leaves the bulb slightly loosened inside the light socket. The vibrations from the trains rumbling past will eventually loosen the bulb. The terrorist hopes that the bulb will finally vibrate out of the socket, shattering on the floor and releasing a deadly cloud of anthrax.
The author was inspired to create these convergent plot lines by some real events. The incident Kelly experienced at age 9 was based on an actual disaster that took place Feb. 4, 1977, when four CTA elevated train cars flew off the rails and down onto the street. There were 11 fatalities.
The idea of a light bulb filled with anthrax came out of an actual Pentagon report that was called “Terror 2000.” Harvey took those events and folded them into an action-packed story that takes many circuitous twists and strews many clues. The plot thickens; the tension builds. Down in the subway a government agent observes: “Then the train was past. The bulbs continued to rock, in a subtle, declining arc … ”
I had no clue until the end who might have actually conspired to commit these crimes. “The Third Rail” is an electric, high-voltage page turner that smokes, sizzles and scorches.
Vick Mickunas
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