A Rookie Newsman Battles Deadlines and Crime in A Killing on the Hill
Who knew that Seattle was a hotbed of crime during the Great Depression? Hardboiled detective mysteries often were set in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago where organized crime controlled speakeasies, bootlegging, prostitution, drugs, loan sharking, and drugs. Robert Dugoni, who lives in Seattle, discovered otherwise when going through old trunks in his attic. He came across large black books with red spines. Inside were newspaper clippings that had run in local newspapers during the 1930s, documenting a murder and a trial that dominated headlines for months.
Frankie Ray, a former boxer, was shot and killed by George Moore in the barroom of the Pom Pom Club, which Moore owned. A famous trial attorney, John J. Sullivan, represented Moore, who admitted to shooting Ray because he had “feared for his own life.” A novel defense strategy at that time. The trial featured a motley group of shady characters who seemed to be out of central casting. “A former journalist and attorney, I was mesmerized,” Dugoni writes in the acknowledgments of his new novel, A Killing on the Hill.
Dugoni delved further into the case and did research on organized crime in Seattle during the Depression. The result is A Killing on the Hill, which will remind many readers of the best by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Dugoni’s experience as a journalist and an attorney helps to bring the principals, as well as the settings, alive.
Dugoni keeps the name of the murdered man, Ray, but changes the accused killer to George Miller. His imagination produces lots of colorful characters. The main protagonist, fledgling reporter at the Seattle Daily Star William Schumacher, dubbed “Shoe,” by his boss, the newspaper’s publisher and editor, Howard Phishbaum, called “Phish,” will be recognizable to anyone in the news business who has chased big stories and deadlines. Sullivan remains as defense counsel and the prosecutor is Laurence McKinley. The courtroom scenes include lots of drama in the exchanges between the prosecutor, defense counsel, and their witnesses. Then there are the observers, not only members of the press, but those who were close to the murdered man and the one being charged with his killing. There’s more than one femme fatale, women who were involved with Ray and Moore.
The murder happens in the early hours at the Pom Pom Club. Shoe is surprised to get a call from Chief Detective Ernie Blunt, offering him the story. Of course Shoe is excited. He’s also a little confused. Why would Blunt single out him, rather than a more experienced reporter from a different newspaper with a larger circulation? Phish is thrilled, but Shoe remains on guard, especially when one of his rivals warns that he’s too green to cover such a big story. But Shoe’s access, thanks to Blunt, keeps him one step ahead of the other papers. Even Mrs. Alderbrook, who runs the boarding house where he rents a room, is impressed once Shoe’s stories are the talk of the city.
But the woman Shoe is trying to impress is Amara Giovacchini, who runs a bakery with her father. Shoe loves their cinnamon-raisin pastries, but it’s Amara who captures his heart. She is impressed with his newspaper scoops and the fact that in the Depression he has a full-time job and is making money. As a new reporter, however, Shoe is being paid pennies an inch by Phish. He’s also sending money to his family back in Kansas who are barely holding onto their home. Though Shoe works overtime covering the trial, he finds time to take Amara to the movies and is soon falling in love.
As the trial progresses, Shoe figures out that it’s all about the money. Ryan hid the money given to him by Miller but died without revealing the whereabouts of the treasure. Shoe becomes obsessed with finding the money but places himself in danger. He also faces a moral dilemma: if he finds the treasure, will he keep it? The funds could go a long way towards helping his family and supporting Amara once they get married. In the midst of the Depression, everyone seems to be on the take, including the judge overseeing the trial. But can Shoe live with himself if he becomes, essentially, a thief?
A Killing on the Hill is a great mystery and a fun read. Dugoni perfectly captures a time when newspapers, rather than the internet, delivered the stories that captivated the public and left readers eager for more.
A Killing on the Hill
Robert Dugoni
Top photo: Bigstock
