Forever Haunt (McSwain Files, #5), by Adam Carpenter

[Ulysses]

Forever Haunt (The Jimmy McSwain Files, #5)
By Adam Carpenter
MLR Press, 2017
Five stars
“You just have to always remember what’s most important…That before death, there’s such a thing called life.”

I don’t know how I missed this when it was released in June. I think I was on vacation, because I remember the author teasing us on Facebook, showing the cover, that it was going to be released soon…then by the time I got back from vacation the buzz had died down and I forgot.

So, I’m glad I noticed and bought it and read it. Finished it on the subway in New York this afternoon. I’m giving this an unusual five stars, in spite of some residual awkwardness in the writing, because I really love this series, and I love Jimmy McSwain. I think I even love Frankie Frisano. Maybe. We’ll see.

Let me quote myself from my review of the last McSwain file: “But it’s coming time for Jimmy to take his father’s place, for good, at the head of the McSwain family table. And who’s to say that the end of this series couldn’t spawn a whole new series with a happy Jimmy at the helm? New York will never be uncomplicated. Murder will out. There’s always work for a smart detective.”

Jimmy lives in a real New York City. One that the author knows well, and one that I know well, too, but from a bridge-and-tunnel perspective. The city lives in these books, as Chicago does in Marshall Thornton’s amazing Nick Nowak series. It is as much a character as any of the people. But Jimmy McSwain is not Nick Nowak; Jimmy’s a gay millennial who’s seen the world change. He’s out and proud, the private-eye son of a murdered Irish cop, the bridge between two generations. He loves his mom and his feisty sisters; but he also loves the closeted Francis Xavier Frisano, up-and-coming police captain, and son of a hugely influential officer at Police Plaza. Jimmy and Frank’s mutual passion is beautifully portrayed, as are the emotional and practical complications created by their relationship.

Jimmy’s haunted quest to solve his father’s murder has turned him into a compulsive hero. A gay boy with a savior complex. Two mysteries crop up to fill Jimmy’s days and echo his unfinished mission for justice for his father. A young policeman is killed, execution style, and a little Latino boy is kidnapped right in front of the building where Jimmy’s family still lives. To add even more distraction, his younger sister Meaghan is about to give birth, and his relationship with Frank Frisano seems to be developing in spite of the complications the two men bring to it.

As in all of these books, Joey McSwain’s murder is recapitulated, and becomes a visual centerpiece in the plot arc, as it is in Jimmy’s memory. It is a terrible image—a fourteen year old holding his dying father on the floor of a neighborhood deli. It is the defining moment of Jimmy’s young life, a moment—we all understand—that he must get past if he’s ever going to really live his life for himself.

There is a shocking twist here that startled me and knocked me back. I loved being shocked that way, because, as a reader, I felt the same punch to the gut that Jimmy felt at the exact same time. Carpenter draws us into Jimmy’s life and into his head (and heart). But he gives the reader the power to see where Jimmy is too wounded to see. We know where we want things to go, and we see where they appear to be going; but we are powerless to actually make Jimmy do what we want. The anxiety that drives our interest is not so much the solution of the crimes, but whether or not Jimmy will sabotage his own happiness in order to satisfy his obsession.

“But at what cost to you, Jimmy?”

This is not the last book; but whatever comes next will be very different. I so look forward to meeting this new Jimmy McSwain, now thirty years old, as he takes on the bad guys.