Wow, but this was one heck of a bleak read. Both the main characters are pretty messed up individuals caught up in murky dealings between Boston's criminal underworld and some crooked politicians.

Everything is so depressing. The winter lasts forever with nothing to relieve the cold. The Bruins have failed to make the playoffs and every single person seems to think the only way to solve any problems is to shoot it, or beat it to a pulp.

By the end of the book I was praying for the start of the baseball season and some warmer weather.

"What did she do for the office?"

"What we all do there. Lots of filing, answering phones, meeting and greeting, taking notes. Basic office work. And even though it's not rocket science, she didn't do too well at it."

Wait a minute.... Not rocket science? This book is set in 1951, and I know rocket science has been around since then, but this idiom has always seemed fairly modern to me. So I did a bit of digging and it looks as if I was right.

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/its-not-rocket-science.html

A serial killer stalks the streets of 1950s Boston--and two friends take it upon themselves to bring him down. Post-war Boston is down on its luck and looking for change. A year after the Great Brink's Robbery--the largest robbery in the history of the United States--Boston is known more for its seedy underbelly than for its rich, historical past. The winter of 1951 is the worst in recent memory, and the Bruins are suffering another losing season.

Like Boston itself, lifelong residents Cal O'Brien and Dante Cooper are struggling to find their identities after World War II. Cal has built a mildly promising life for himself as an employee of a company providing private security, whether to an honorable businessman who needs a night watchman or to an Irish mafioso who needs to have someone's legs broken. Dante is everything Cal is not. A heroin addict trying and failing to stay clean, Dante feels the call to do good after he discovers that his sister-in-law was the latest victim of a serial killer targeting disadvantaged women. Woefully unqualified, but determined to help, Cal and Dante take it upon themselves to track the killer--but their daunting quest takes on dangerous consequences when the trail leads them to the highest ranks of city government. There are a few well-placed men who don't want Cal and Dante to solve this case.

I only picked this up because it happened to be next to the Tim O'Mara book I was collecting for my husband. But the first paragraph of the blurb was enough for me to add it to my pile.

 

Hate was the only thing that could make one stronger, and he hated not just himself but every low-down bookie, thug, and peddler of junk and underage girls. Someday the fires of hell would take them all away, and he wished that he’d be able to sit on the precipice , taking in his last fix, and watch them all burn and suffer, knowing that soon enough the flames would eventually come his way and pull him down to join them.

It was a bit difficult for me to make up my mind regarding my rating of this book because while I really enjoyed the first half of the book, I wasn't as thrilled about the second half. This book follows two friends, Cal and Dante, who both have their fair share of hardship and pain as they try to figure out who killed Dante's sister-in-law, Sheila. From the book description I thought that Cal would be a lot more well-adjusted than Dante, but he was pretty screwed up too. I liked Cal a bit more than Dante but they were both interesting characters to follow.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book and couldn't put it down while reading it. I liked getting to read about Cal and Dante and seeing the dynamics of their neighborhood. I felt like the book kind of slowed down at about 50% of the way through and the plot didn't progress as much. Things really started to pick up towards the end and there was some great action (and also some heartbreak). I have to say that I wasn't all that satisfied with how everything was resolved. It almost seemed like the authors realized that they had to end the story so then the characters just went wild. I still had some questions that I felt like were not answered. From what I have seen I think that this is the first in a series but I can't see what could happen in a sequel to this (but I would be interested in reading said sequel). Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the galley.