Is it just me, or are we all on a personal quest to find a hidden gem author that just knocks our socks off and leaves us begging for more? Well, hot damn, I just found a new ass-kicking author that just floored me. Wanna know the best part? This isn’t his first book so I get to enjoy more of his work right away!
Terrance McCauley…where have you been hiding? I've read a few of McCauley’s short stories in collections released through Thuglit and while I liked his offerings, I was ill-prepared for what I got when I tackled Prohibition, his release from 2015. It took me about 2 paragraphs to recognize that I'd dropped the ball letting this one fly under my radar.
Set in New York City back in the days of gangsters and turf wars, this gem reads like a manuscript written in a time where words were a commodity and none were to be wasted in scenes that didn’t propel the story-line forward. While not a short read, this book is tightly written and not a scene is wasted…it is as if the story itself is on speed and is intent on taking the reader on a ride to noir heaven and is on the express lane to get there.
I love a revenge story and that's what's at the heart of this extraordinary book. When Archie Doyle’s gang and his empire are attacked, he sets his top enforcer Terry Quinn loose on the city and his enemies in an attempt to not only find answers, but to extract revenge and keep order in Doyle’s world. The scene is set for a potential massacre and while Quinn may be at a loss for the who and the why in what is happening, he is not at a loss for the amount of violence he is willing to reap to find the answers to these questions. Quinn is a very interesting character. While he is an enforcer who will move mountains to do his job, he carries himself with the moral principles that he holds true. He looks to keep innocent people safe from the life he has chosen, yet he doesn’t hesitate to swing the hammer of justice onto those who have chosen to join the life of crime he chosen.
I can’t rave enough over this book. Prohibition does absolutely everything right and it blew me away from the get-go. If you let this fall too far down your TBR pile, rectify that shit right now and give yourself a few hours to read this and then a few hours to catch your breath. Yes…it is that good.
Highly Recommended.
Review by Derrick Horodyski.