The Double Vice, by Chris Holcombe (Hidden Gotham 1)

[Ulysses]

The Double Vice (Hidden Gotham 1)
By Chris Holcombe
Published by Books Like Us, 2021
Five stars

The year is 1926, and Dash Parker has opened a speakeasy in Greenwich Village that caters to people like him. Estranged from his wealthy upper-east-side family, Dash is proud of what he and his two partners, Finn and Joe, have accomplished, hiding their hot jazz and illegal booze behind a tailor shop. He’s throwing a birthday party for himself, and feeling good.

And then things start to go wrong.

What ensues is a detective thriller in which the main protagonist is learning as he goes. Dash pursues the truth up and down Manhattan, swallowing his fear in order to do what he believes is right. Unlike most of the characters in the book, Dash is not only out for himself. His big heart and upper-class innocence don’t always serve him well, but his innate good nature goes a long way to opening doors.

Chris Holcombe gets the tone and the lingo of Manhattan at the height of the jazz age just right, and gives it to us through the eyes of a society boy who has exiled himself in order to be himself. He tenderly paints the settings that his players inhabit, and gives us characters as vivid as any F. Scott Fitzgerald dished up. He moves from the mostly-white bohemian enclave of the Village to the mostly-black nightlife of Harlem, and does it with both respect and affection. The lingo and the dialogue feel just right. The author takes great pains to make that happen, and it works.

Dash is naïve and romantic enough to believe that he can flaut the Volkstead act (aka Prohibition) without running afoul of New York’s criminal elements (including its policemen). He doesn’t know it, but he’s a brave young man, turning his back on his privileged birthright in order to feel free, and to provide that same kind of freedom to men and women of his stripe.

As Dash realizes that it’s all gotten too complicated and that there’s no turning back, he confronts murder, blackmail, corruption and personal danger to hold onto his modest dream. He still believes in justice in an unjust world, and he believes that he and his kind deserve love.

I’ve bought the rest of the books in this series. This is worth reading.