The Blue Door

THE BLUE DOOR; David Fulmer; New York: Harcourt, 2008, 325pp. Fiction

Shamus award winner David Fulmer introduces boxer turned private eye "Fast Eddie" Cero in "The Blue Door," the story of a great South Philly band whose lead singer disappears without a trace at the height of his career. Eddie picks up PI work because he's too busted up to go back into the ring, but after a few domestic infidelities cases, he starts to nose around in Johnny Pope's three-year old story because he is taking a liking to Johnny's sister Valerie, a singer at The Blue Door nightclub. There are many suspects but not many clues in this wisecracking, hard-drinking (bad language), blue collar detective novel. The dialogue is so crisp, and the characters so engaging, the case itself almost becomes tangential to the felt reality of Philadelphia in the early sixties. Eddie is such an endearing guy, tough, clear-eyed, but kind--one hopes he will appear again--and again.

LW