Cisco by Jim White. Dark Passages Publishing. 2019.
Reviewed by A.M. Potter. ® 2019.
Cisco tells the tale of a cunning man, a kidnapper with a Biblical sense of wrath. The novella unfolds on the streets of San Fran. Its plotline is reminiscent of a Flannery O’Connor story. The reader gets religiosity and hard-scrabble life in equal measure. In addition to the O’Connor fictional MO, we are in Elmore Leonard land. White delivers Cisco with sharp, clear prose. There are no wasted words. We are immediately pulled into the story.
The protagonist, Cisco, knows his Bible, but he doesn’t turn his cheek. He’s a lawless evangelical. He has no apparent remorse. A speech impediment humanizes him. However, it turns out to be fake. Some think he’s a mad man. Is he ‘criminally insane’? I’d say not. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s a killer/kidnapper of Biblical, as in monstrous, proportions, both physically and mentally. His strength appears to come from God, and yet he is a Fallen Man (echoing Prospero and Caliban in ‘The Tempest’).
On the other side of the thin blue line, the antagonist, Detective Helen McCurda, is a seasoned cop with no quit. She’s tough, competent, and sympatico. She’s everything you want a cop to be. However, Cisco is the engine of the story. His actions and complex personality move the plot forward. As in Leonard’s novels, the criminals in Cisco are far more interesting than the cops. I like that. The cops can’t always be the stars. But I do have a minor complaint – which is really a compliment. I want more of Cisco. The story ended too soon.
North Noir 