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Mac #4
The Mean Streets
Book by Dewey, Thomas B.
- GenresMystery
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
2 people are currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Thomas B. Dewey
86 books8 followersThomas Blanchard Dewey was an American author of hardboiled crime novels. He created two series of novels: the first one features Mac, a private investigator from Chicago, the second features Pete Schofield.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 9, 2020
This probably wasn't originally a Mac detective book. It simply has a whole different feel to it. Nevertheless, it is a good, solid read. The focus in this book is on the juvenile delinquency problem in the fifties and the reefer parties. Mac goes undercover as a high school coach in a mean neighborhood and has to get to the bottom line of a crime ring. It has a real fifties-era feel to it and great characters like the silver-haired duchess. Other characters feel like cariactures of fifties tough guys. Although this one takes a little while to get going, once it does, it really chugs along.
July 30, 2019
The fifth book in the acclaimed “Mac” series of detective books starts off setting low expectations with a clunky beginning that has Mac posing as a High School baseball coach hired to work a juvenile delinquency problem in a unnamed urban area near Chicago. Fortunately the book picks up steam in a hurry with a few murders, organized crime, and jailbait named Stella. Mac partners up with a mysterious and alluring woman that he calls “The Duchess”, a grieving mother and alcoholic who is somehow tied up in this whole mess. The book works well as a period piece from the 1950s hype of juvenile delinquency and as a top-notch detective story. Recommended.
May 10, 2021
Many who read this will not remember the term "juvenile delinquent" which was such common coin in the 1950s, but there are lots of them in this slightly unusual entry in the "Mac" series.
Our doughty fighter for truth and justice is working undercover and away from Chicago.
The book reeks of the poverty and inequalities which feed crime. Is there final redemption?
Interesting as social commentary and less perhaps as an exercise in detection.
3.5 stars.
Our doughty fighter for truth and justice is working undercover and away from Chicago.
The book reeks of the poverty and inequalities which feed crime. Is there final redemption?
Interesting as social commentary and less perhaps as an exercise in detection.
3.5 stars.
October 13, 2025
3.5 rounded up.
This is the first Thomas Dewey novel I've read. Someone once called him a bridge between Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. I guess that's a fair statement: he is a world-weary PI telling his tale in the first-person, plenty tough, but "not himself mean," as Chandler's famed essay outlines (and from which this book's title is taken).
But this novel from 1954 seems much more similar to a couple of other contemporaries who I will name later. It is not without deficiencies and dated elements (novels dealing with juvenile delinquency always seem to date worse than Chandler-esque PI novels), but is definitely good enough that I want to try more of Dewey's novels.
A PI known simply as Mac is hired by the city administration in a burg reminiscent of Chicago to impersonate a teacher and baseball coach, ingratiate himself with some of the local toughs, and find out who is funding and organizing all the gang activity. Things don't go according to plan when Joey, his ace-in-the-hole, gets injured during practice and rejoins his drug-dealing, rumbling inner city pals. Joey idolizes his older brother Louis, a small-time hood with bigger connections, and Mac has to try to break through to him. Things get further complicated when the boy who hit Joey with the pitch turns up dead. There are other characters in the plot I will not reveal.
The mystery is not baffling, and there were no real surprises, including the ultimate identity of the gang leader known only as Mr. Smith, but the book held my interest and built in tension throughout. It also got much better once it got tougher about halfway through, when Mac was exposed as being a private cop, was framed with dirty pictures and had his partnership with the city dissolved.
The lone man versus vast yet evanescent gang is a situation like Mike Hammer might have found himself in, only Mac is much gentler; I had to wait many pages before he allowed himself to pound Louis, who kept hassling him and acting like big shot. Then Mac did it competently, satisfyingly and repeatedly, enough so that I may call this novel "hard-boiled." Other plot elements involving sad, long buried family secrets invoke Lew Archer's recurring themes. These comparisons are not made to say the book is hackneyed or unoriginal; I thought the PI-meets-JD angle made it unusual among books I have read. And while the early stages seemed to lack a sufficient threat, a return to a more murder-and-missing person-related plot actually increased the sense of danger by decreasing the scope.
Only near the end does the book falter again slightly, when Joey has his moment of truth, and must choose between hooliganism and another way of life, as represented here by a poster of Joe Dimaggio. It did not detract too severely from the momentum built up, but was a little corny when read today. And the mechanics of the gang, although enjoyable, seemed less than authentic; secret underground meetings where young teens are fed propaganda. . . waitaminnit, that sounds a lot like today, after all.
Worth checking out.
This is the first Thomas Dewey novel I've read. Someone once called him a bridge between Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. I guess that's a fair statement: he is a world-weary PI telling his tale in the first-person, plenty tough, but "not himself mean," as Chandler's famed essay outlines (and from which this book's title is taken).
But this novel from 1954 seems much more similar to a couple of other contemporaries who I will name later. It is not without deficiencies and dated elements (novels dealing with juvenile delinquency always seem to date worse than Chandler-esque PI novels), but is definitely good enough that I want to try more of Dewey's novels.
A PI known simply as Mac is hired by the city administration in a burg reminiscent of Chicago to impersonate a teacher and baseball coach, ingratiate himself with some of the local toughs, and find out who is funding and organizing all the gang activity. Things don't go according to plan when Joey, his ace-in-the-hole, gets injured during practice and rejoins his drug-dealing, rumbling inner city pals. Joey idolizes his older brother Louis, a small-time hood with bigger connections, and Mac has to try to break through to him. Things get further complicated when the boy who hit Joey with the pitch turns up dead. There are other characters in the plot I will not reveal.
The mystery is not baffling, and there were no real surprises, including the ultimate identity of the gang leader known only as Mr. Smith, but the book held my interest and built in tension throughout. It also got much better once it got tougher about halfway through, when Mac was exposed as being a private cop, was framed with dirty pictures and had his partnership with the city dissolved.
The lone man versus vast yet evanescent gang is a situation like Mike Hammer might have found himself in, only Mac is much gentler; I had to wait many pages before he allowed himself to pound Louis, who kept hassling him and acting like big shot. Then Mac did it competently, satisfyingly and repeatedly, enough so that I may call this novel "hard-boiled." Other plot elements involving sad, long buried family secrets invoke Lew Archer's recurring themes. These comparisons are not made to say the book is hackneyed or unoriginal; I thought the PI-meets-JD angle made it unusual among books I have read. And while the early stages seemed to lack a sufficient threat, a return to a more murder-and-missing person-related plot actually increased the sense of danger by decreasing the scope.
Only near the end does the book falter again slightly, when Joey has his moment of truth, and must choose between hooliganism and another way of life, as represented here by a poster of Joe Dimaggio. It did not detract too severely from the momentum built up, but was a little corny when read today. And the mechanics of the gang, although enjoyable, seemed less than authentic; secret underground meetings where young teens are fed propaganda. . . waitaminnit, that sounds a lot like today, after all.
Worth checking out.
September 14, 2015
Mac is undercover as a baseball coach in a mid-sized city of 200,000, investigating juvenile gangs and an mob boss who has them organized. At first this seems like a typical 1950s expose of juvenile delinquency, but we should expect more from Dewey. There is a couple of murders, the mystery of the mob boss’ identity, some bittersweet romance with a sad, lonely wife, and Dewey’s writing. Taking the title from a Chandler quote, Dewey doesn’t quite come up to the poetry of Chandler, but it is still very good.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews