"THE BLUE DOOR" by David Fulmer (A-)

If you like your novels gritty and down to earth, then this mystery about the unsolved murder of a black singer in south Philadelphia during the early 1960's just might be the perfect read for you. This book is a realistic portrayal of an era 45 years ago where everyone was defined by their ethnicity and where each ethnic group kept to its own in a strictly delineated neighborhood enclave. Political correctness didn't exist, and a member of one ethnic group often openly used pejoratives to describe a member of another group. Be forewarned that this book is filled with enough ethnic slurs to make almost anyone wince.

Fortunately, the book is also filled with great writing and colorful descriptions of the crowded urban neighborhoods in and around south Philadelphia. While the story itself is a work of fiction, the descriptions are powerfully reminiscent of the style and place of that long ago era. The author has chosen "South Philly" as the setting because he loves the area.

Author David Fulmer is currently a columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other Southern periodicals and he is a winner of the Shamus Award for an earlier mystery novel. In spite of the generic nature of his name, Fulmer's sensitivities and inclinations are very much Italian for, as he says in his forward, his mother was a Prizzi and his dad "had an honorary vowel added to his name." In interviews Fulmer relates that he grew up with a lot of Italian uncles in a small town not far from Philadelphia and he relished the idea of using South Philly as the setting for his crime novel. He draws on his own experiences to flesh out the background of the narrative, and his story is the richer because of it.

This is the first in what I hope will be a continuing series about Eddie Cero, a welterweight boxer who is forcibly retired from the ring by a sucker blow and ends up working part time for a private eye. Fulmer hits the mark here and I for one wish that Eddie never gets back into the ring.

In a case where a lemon turns into lemonade, Eddie loses his fight with T-Bone Mieux after a head butt opens up a bloody gash above his eye and the referee calls the fight. Fully dispirited and walking towards a bar where no one will know him, Eddie stumbles upon a stranger who is being pummeled in a dark alley by two punks. He clocks one of the punks and they both run off, threatening "Sal" as they leave.

Sal turns out to be Sal Giombroni, a private eye and the owner of SG Confidential Investigations. He offers to buy Eddie a drink as thanks and then, after he has recognized him as the boxer, he offers him a part time job. Eddie can't see himself as a private eye, but Sal is very persuasive and, besides, Eddie has nothing else to do on the following Monday morning. In between wistful dreams of returning to the ring, which is the only job that he has ever had, Eddie finds out that he is pretty good at his new gig.

Sal takes an immediate shine to him, so early on in his new career, his boss sends him over to help out a friend who is having money troubles at a bar called the Blue Door Saloon. Joe D'Amato, the owner, believes that one of his bartenders is scamming him, but he can't figure out how he does it. Eddie lounges around the bar under the cover of being a good friend and a former champion welterweight boxer. Solving the scam turns out to be surprisingly easy, much to the delight of his new boss. Joe is also very grateful and he offers Eddie a free drink any time he stops by.

Eddie is more than happy to stop by because his interest has been piqued by one of the singers at the Blue Door. A lovely black girl named Valerie Pope comes on and croons some tunes that he vividly remembers from years before when a group called the Excels had made them popular. Valerie turns out to be the former backup singer for the group and the younger sister of the talented lead singer.

The Excels were just on the verge of stardom when Valerie's brother, Johnny Pope, had suddenly disappeared in what is presumed to have been a murder. His body was never found after only a lackluster investigation which didn't develop any leads. It was soon dropped and written off as just another case of black on black crime.

Eddie had always loved the Excels and, in a huge leap of faith in his own detecting abilities, he now wishes to pursue the matter further as an aside to his new job. Sal isn't happy about this, because people rarely disappear without a trace unless the mob is involved, and he has no desire to tangle with the mob. Somewhat surprisingly, Valerie is also less than excited to have a white guy digging around her black neighborhood asking everyone for leads about something that no one has felt like talking about before. 2008, Harcourt Books, 325 pages.