{"id":8092,"date":"2019-07-29T07:16:03","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T11:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8092"},"modified":"2019-07-29T07:16:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T11:16:03","slug":"swanns-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8092","title":{"rendered":"****Swann’s Down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Written by Charles Salzberg<\/strong>\n\u2013 Henry Swann\u2019s Manhattan business is a murky one that only a big city, with\nall its ragged fringes, could support. He\u2019s mainly a skip tracer, someone whose\ntrue skill is in finding people and sometimes things\u2014lost, runaway, hiding\u2014and\na good guide to the dark corners that would never appear in a tourist\u2019s Top\nTen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His self-described partner\nGoldblatt is loud and unpredictable, and Swann would prefer not to be saddled\nwith him, but he\u2019s harder to get rid of than a bad memory. How little he\nactually knows about Goldblatt becomes clear when the man asks Swann for help\nwith a personal problem involving Goldblatt\u2019s second wife, Rachel: \u201cYou…\nYou\u2019ve been married?\u201d Three times, in fact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rachel is a little spacey, a little\ntoo trusting, and a fake psychic has bilked her out of some $75,000. Goldblatt\nwants Swann to find this psychic. And get the money back, if he can. Delving\ninto the world of the con, Swann interacts with some real New York characters,\nbrimming with a lively mix of attitude, insights, and venality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, a paying client turns\nup as well. Swann is asked to find a missing witness who supposedly can alibi\nher truculent boyfriend, Nicky Diamond, a notorious hitman who claims he\u2019s\ninnocent in this case. He\u2019s bad news and Swann is reluctant to help him out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did the girlfriend disappear?\nDoes whoever actually did the killing want Diamond to take the fall? Did\nDiamond encourage (or frighten) her into disappearing because she actually\ncan\u2019t back up his story? When Swann finds her, will it be wise to encourage her\nto return to New York, or will he just make her a target? If she fled because\nshe was afraid, would she return at all? The case is full of such quandaries,\nbut Diamond\u2019s lawyer finally talks Swann into pursuing it, and Swann applies\none of his guiding principles to the decision: \u201cOkay. I\u2019m in. So long as I get paid,\nwhat do I care?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swann has to use his considerable persuasive powers to move these two cases in the direction of resolution, even if his remit is not to follow them to their absolute end. His self-deprecating narration and wry humor are charming, his descriptions of the daily frustrations of living in Manhattan hit home, and the issues that raise Swann\u2019s curiosity interested me too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author Salzberg is a former magazine writer with both non-fiction and crime fiction to his credit. He\u2019s a founding member of the New York Writers Workshop and has had a successful teaching career. This is the fifth Swann book\u2014and Salzberg says the last. Whether he can really leave Swann behind or not, I\u2019ll be on the lookout for those previous four books! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo: krazydad \/ jbum is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Charles Salzberg \u2013 Henry Swann\u2019s Manhattan business is a murky one that only a big city, with all its ragged fringes, could support. He\u2019s mainly a skip tracer, someone whose true skill is in finding people and sometimes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"****Swann's Down - Skip-tracer Henry Swann is on the hunt for a larcenous fortune-teller and a reluctant witness. An entertaining summer read!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[54,40,126,32],"tags":[1607,1609,581],"class_list":["post-8092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-detective","category-fiction","category-reading-2","category-thriller","tag-charles-salzberg","tag-henry-swann","tag-manhattan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/psychic.jpg?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-26w","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8092"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8092\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8093,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8092\/revisions\/8093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}