Title: Smoke and Mirrors: Police Dreams
Author: Jordan P. Castro
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978152452449
Pages: 134
Genre: Crime Fiction
Reviewed By: Dave Bishop
Pacific Book Review
Author Jordan P Castro is trying for something different with this New York based tale of a rookie cop attempting to live up to his own standards and perhaps those of his dead father who once wore the gold shield of a detective. He freely admits as much by referring to his tome as A Literary Painting on the cover page. A dicey label perhaps— probably better bestowed on a work by someone other than the author. However, there is a degree of grandeur in Castro’s attempt to elevate the shopworn genre to a higher rung on the literary ladder. In some instances he succeeds, in other instances his success is simply increasing the number of syllables in words. Yet his quest for something out of the ordinary still makes for interesting reading if you like your literature liberally spiced with high-minded heroes, seedy goings-on, slam-bang action and periodically poetic prose.
The rookie cop’s surname is Rose, a name that doubles as both protagonist’s moniker and literary metaphor. He has a fiancée, Cecelia, whom he loves but she soon jets off to California to further her schooling. Long distant relationships are always difficult and this one soon becomes even more so when Rose encounters Giselle. She’s a high- spirited, fast-talking, beautifully blossoming young girl from a ghetto in the Bronx who is not quite seventeen years old. Giselle is actually a “look-out” for murdering criminals. Rose hopes to turn her into his confidential informant. His attempts to do so soon begin to result in a dangerous situation for both of them. She runs the risk of lethal retribution from her animalistic employers and he runs the risk of censure from his superiors and potential vengeance from his God as his feelings for her creep closer and closer to something more than paternal-like protection. In fact, most of the rising action within the author’s plot centers around the cascading emotions Cecelia and Rose have for one another. Their relationship becomes central to the story and drives the narrative to its eventual culmination.
Castro is an accomplished storyteller. His plot is both focused and credible. He creates convincing characters you can empathize with or hold in disdain, depending on the behaviors they exhibit. Seldom do the players’ dialogues slip the bounds of credulity even when the author is occasionally overreaching for profundity in his prose. Which is not to say he can’t turn an exquisite phrase here and there, as in, “It was the greatest assignment of my career in this goddamn bureau before I put in my retirement papers only to live life as an uncompensated lessee in a house of unremitting torment and revisitation.”
Lovers of crime dramas as well as enthusiasts of literary mountain climbing may well find a lot to like by immersing themselves in Smoke And Mirrors: Police Dreams.
