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The Killer Among Us
The year is 1933. The economy has collapsed. Joblessness and homelessness have sent families on treks across America seeking the grail of basic survival. Despite refrigeration, which has replaced blocks of ice covered in sawdust and canvas, powerful automobiles, trains, planes and other engineering wonders, the country has turned into one long dusty soup line. Who has money? Not Tucker Hammond, a World War I veteran and ex-cop, or his wife Emma, who land on their lonely trek in Palisades Park, a New Jersey town of sordid trickeries and deceit. The Hammonds have come to meet Michael Fitzgerald, a butcher out to avenge his father's murder and the evil done by his mother, a prostitute, and her lover, a depraved sex fiend.
286 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 26, 2014
I thoroughly enjoyed this read. I look forward to more stories like this from Mr. Beck. Thank you to Noir Nation & especially Paul Brazil for publishing this and giving a voice to authors that might not otherwise be heard. If you like historical mystery fiction, you should like this.
October 31, 2017
It's probably no coincidence that the title of George Beck's Depression-era period noir, The Killer Among Us, is remarkably similar to that of Jim Thompson's hard boiled classic, The Killer Inside Me. In both books, the killer is a man whose seemingly normal exterior masks a tremendous amount of depravity that winds up causing grief to nearly everyone with whom he comes in contact. Beck's work isn't quite at Thompson's level, but his book is well worth the read.
Beck's killer is Mike Baker, who is actually the butcher in the small town of Palisades Park, NJ. In the very first chapter, he takes a meat cleaver to an elderly customer whom he blamed for the breakup of his parents' marriage and the subsequent death of his father. From that moment on, Mike starts killing everyone in town against whom he holds a grudge, which seems like half the town. The town's police chief, whose own family history intersects with Mike's, is stumped as to the killer's identity for quite a while. Because the police department is woefully short staffed, the chief winds up hiring a newcomer to town, an ex-cop named Tucker Hammond, who had been headed to New York with his wife, ho ping to make a new start before their car broke down and Mike Baker, of all people, gave them a lift to town.
Author Beck has populated his book with a solid set of core characters and a rich storyline, filled with details you don’t often see in books of this nature, such as an affair between Baker and one of the secondary characters in the book. Yet, for all the detail The Killer Among Us contains, the book never gets bogged down or becomes too confusing to follow. Instead, he has mastered the knack of introducing just the right amount of detail and explanation as needed. There are no surprises here but no confusion either. Actually, the police figure out that Mike is the killer just past the halfway point in the book, and the second half becomes a cat-and-mouse manhunt between cops and killer that maintains a high level of suspense.
The richly detailed characters ironically are the one weak link in The Killer Among Us. The author makes readers privy to their thought processes and, frankly, the dialogue just doesn’t ring true all the time. At times I got the distinct impression that the characters as described simply wouldn’t say or do what they are portrayed as doing. That’s a relatively minor quibble, however, because the book moves at such a fast pace that readers won’t dwell on any particular odd sounding paragraph or two.
The Killer Among Us contains another important character, one that overrides all the others—the Great Depression. The book takes place in 1933, the early days of the New Deal and the end of Prohibition (Mike runs booze as a sidelight to his butcher business). But the Depression isn’t merely an excuse to trot out some period references (although the book does contain a good bit of period detail). Instead, it permeates the entire storyline. Palisades Park is struggling from the economic hard times, which have turned the town into a new ghost town with a shadow of a police force and put a lot of good people on the streets. The events that take place in the book are quite gruesome, but their impact is magnified considerably by the period backdrop.
In many ways, The Killer Among Us is a depressing read (pun intended). It’s quite violent in spots, and bad things happen to some likable people. But it captures the feel of its setting perfectly, and the characters’ motivations are surprisingly detailed and realistic. Few authors make the effort that Beck does to explore this period in American society as it affects the more ordinary types of people that populate this book (even Mike isn’t so much a mob figure as a man trying to make ends meet). The serial killer storyline Beck has created would be effective in any era, but it resonates even more powerfully here. The Killer Among Us is a compelling book.
Beck's killer is Mike Baker, who is actually the butcher in the small town of Palisades Park, NJ. In the very first chapter, he takes a meat cleaver to an elderly customer whom he blamed for the breakup of his parents' marriage and the subsequent death of his father. From that moment on, Mike starts killing everyone in town against whom he holds a grudge, which seems like half the town. The town's police chief, whose own family history intersects with Mike's, is stumped as to the killer's identity for quite a while. Because the police department is woefully short staffed, the chief winds up hiring a newcomer to town, an ex-cop named Tucker Hammond, who had been headed to New York with his wife, ho ping to make a new start before their car broke down and Mike Baker, of all people, gave them a lift to town.
Author Beck has populated his book with a solid set of core characters and a rich storyline, filled with details you don’t often see in books of this nature, such as an affair between Baker and one of the secondary characters in the book. Yet, for all the detail The Killer Among Us contains, the book never gets bogged down or becomes too confusing to follow. Instead, he has mastered the knack of introducing just the right amount of detail and explanation as needed. There are no surprises here but no confusion either. Actually, the police figure out that Mike is the killer just past the halfway point in the book, and the second half becomes a cat-and-mouse manhunt between cops and killer that maintains a high level of suspense.
The richly detailed characters ironically are the one weak link in The Killer Among Us. The author makes readers privy to their thought processes and, frankly, the dialogue just doesn’t ring true all the time. At times I got the distinct impression that the characters as described simply wouldn’t say or do what they are portrayed as doing. That’s a relatively minor quibble, however, because the book moves at such a fast pace that readers won’t dwell on any particular odd sounding paragraph or two.
The Killer Among Us contains another important character, one that overrides all the others—the Great Depression. The book takes place in 1933, the early days of the New Deal and the end of Prohibition (Mike runs booze as a sidelight to his butcher business). But the Depression isn’t merely an excuse to trot out some period references (although the book does contain a good bit of period detail). Instead, it permeates the entire storyline. Palisades Park is struggling from the economic hard times, which have turned the town into a new ghost town with a shadow of a police force and put a lot of good people on the streets. The events that take place in the book are quite gruesome, but their impact is magnified considerably by the period backdrop.
In many ways, The Killer Among Us is a depressing read (pun intended). It’s quite violent in spots, and bad things happen to some likable people. But it captures the feel of its setting perfectly, and the characters’ motivations are surprisingly detailed and realistic. Few authors make the effort that Beck does to explore this period in American society as it affects the more ordinary types of people that populate this book (even Mike isn’t so much a mob figure as a man trying to make ends meet). The serial killer storyline Beck has created would be effective in any era, but it resonates even more powerfully here. The Killer Among Us is a compelling book.
January 25, 2017
heart wrenching
the book was good,well wriiltten. but I didnot like the ending. facts fell into place.well organized. a bullet placed differeny wod have beenmore to my liking.mp
the book was good,well wriiltten. but I didnot like the ending. facts fell into place.well organized. a bullet placed differeny wod have beenmore to my liking.mp
October 28, 2014
A pretty good premise for a story, but there is no character development and the writing is just poor.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews