"THE FIFTH FLOOR" by Michael Harvey (A)

From a cursory glance of his biography, it would seem that author Michael Harvey has enough on his hands with his numerous day jobs including his being a journalist, a documentary film producer, and the co-creator and executive producer of the CBS hit series, "Cold Case Files." That would ordinarily seem to be enough for any two people, but Harvey has decided to enhance his resumé by becoming an author. Must have something to do with his masters degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

His first effort, "The Chicago Way," captured my fancy with its title, which was lifted from the famous quote by actor Sean Connery, who played the jaded cop, Jim Malone, in the 1987 Brian De Palma movie, "The Untouchables." That the story takes place in my home town of Chicago and includes numerous references to the local landmarks in this storied city is another bonus. But the greatest bonus of all is the read, for this book was a smash inaugural effort. (The review of "The Chicago Way" is on my web site.)

Apparently not wishing to rest on his laurels, Harvey has followed up his first literary effort with "The Fifth Floor," his second novel starring hard-boiled Chicago private eye, Michael Kelly. Once again, the writing talent on display here is compelling with a story that is almost impossible to put down. Harvey writes like most of us think, so that the eye, and the mind, float over the verbiage in a seamless transition from the written word to the mental image. This sounds deceptively easy, but it isn't. Very few authors have this talent. To be this polished as a writer with only two novels under his belt shows real promise.

As the title suggests, Harvey gets even closer to the center of power in the city of Chicago, which, as every resident knows, is the fifth floor of the City Hall building. In this fictional case, the mayor is John Julius Wilson. While assuredly not the Mayor Daley of real life, the real mayor and this fictional one share numerous similarities. Both are members of a long ruling political dynasty and both are extremely powerful men. Other than that, it is not for me to sort out fact from fiction.

Michael Kelly, a one time cop, was busted out of the force for being too honest during a period of intense political corruption. Since then he has practiced as a private eye who still has occasional run ins with those who had a hand in forcing him out of his former career.

Right now he has a woman sitting across the desk from him who just happens to be someone with whom he was once romantically involved. Janet Woods sits there quietly with her sunglasses rather poorly hiding evidence of a severe beating. She knows that the glasses aren't hiding anything just surely as she also knows that Kelly knows who did it. Janet Woods was most assuredly beaten up by her husband, Johnny Woods, a lumbering brute of a man who Kelly is rather unhappy to hear works for the mayor.

Such proximity to the mayor would seem to make him bulletproof, and the fact that he is the mayor's "fixer" also makes him dangerous. To find out just exactly what a fixer does, Mike takes a ride with Fred Jacobs, a long time newspaper reporter who suffers from a lifetime of bad habits. The two aren't close, but on occasion each finds the other useful. Jacobs has been cued in by a source that a patronage employee holding a plumb city job is about to be eased out "the Chicago way," which is to say that he will be caught in a politically embarrassing situation which will give the mayor enough cover to fire him.

Seeing once again ample evidence of how the system works, Kelly later tails Johnny Woods to house on Hudson Street on the city's north side. Somewhat surprisingly, Woods flees the house quickly after he entered, and Kelly investigates to find out why. A body with a story is discovered hanging inside, and the story stretches all of the way back to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In another strange coincidence, this particular residence is one of the few houses that had survived that fire, and now Kelly has to watch his back to make sure that he won't be burned as well. 2008, Alfred A. Knopf, 273 pages.