Title: A Civil Man
Author: Bruce Barsanti
Publisher: Create Space
ISBN: 1451559958
Pages: 510, Paperback
Genre: Fiction/Thriller/History Novels
Reviewed by: Barbara Miller, Pacific Book Review
Book Review
Set among dapper gangsters and Irish cops in Chicago during the days of the St. Valentine Day Massacre, Bruce Barsanti writes a fast moving, action packed, entertaining suspense thriller filled with plot twists and turns in his novel, A Civil Man. He begins with a law graduate, Cris, the son of a cop falling for a beautiful mob princess only to find their lives begin to spiral out of control; what’s left of it, that is. The line in the sand is drawn as the characters posture their machismo, the “Mob daddy” and the “Good son of a cop” willing to duel to the death over the beauty of a women they both love – in different ways. The plot mechanisms take an unexpected turn, analogous to the impact level of a modern day soap opera, like Days of Our Lives meeting The Untouchables, when death begins to chip away at the cast.The story moves at lightning speed through the written voice of a tough, confident man that knows how the world turns, understands people, has his destiny predetermined and nobody is going to stop him from getting there. Cris joins the Office of Strategic Services, known as the OSS, the intelligence agency which ultimately evolved to the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA. During WWII Chris is faced with many challenges in the French theatre which defines the soul of the man he was and is to become. Returning to his neighborhood after the war he then must face, once again, “Mob Daddy,” the man that inadvertently sculpted his destiny.
A Civil Man has a Mickey Spillane attitude with some of Humphrey Bogart’s tough one-liners. It is a book excellently embellished in dialogue; detailed down to the appropriate accents. The text, in the electronic version I read, was large with roomy spacing, so I had my finger on the scroll button continuously while my eyes were viewing the action unfolding. In fact, with the adrenaline stirred up inside during some scenes, I found myself scrolling so quickly I thought to myself it reminded me of those old time Flicker cards flashing sequentially within a viewer showing a black & white silent movie. What fun!
A roller coaster of easily believable characters, where bad things happen to good people, Bruce Barsanti sparks a fire kindled in the reader’s mind prepared by many similar period pieces of Chicago during the prohibition and the French Resistance fighters of WWII. In all fairness Bruce Barsanti does a marvelous job differentiating his character Crispin from many of the stereotypical heroes of other people’s works. In essence he brings enjoyable originality to what may be over-exploited period backdrops.
A Civil Man is an ideal companion book for a trip where you want to have an easy to pick up story with interesting characters, good dialogue, and lots of sensuality, greed and violence. A story with memorable characters defined within the backdrop of war and love, Cris will linger in the mind of the readers far beyond the close of the book. “Here’s looking at you,” said the man in the Fedora.
