Author Bio:
Stephen G. Eoannou is the author of the novels Yesteryear (SFWP 2023), Rook (Unsolicited Press 2022), and the short story collection Muscle Cars (SFWP 2015). He has been awarded an Honor Certificate from The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and won the Best Short Screenplay Award at the 36th Starz Denver Film Festival. Eoannou holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte and an MA from Miami University. He lives and writes in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, the setting and inspiration for much of his work.
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Editorial Review:
He retrieved his cane and hat from the floor without toppling, something he considered miraculous, and was grateful to the angel or demon in charge of keeping crippled detectives upright.
“After Pearl” by Stephen G. Eoannou is a delightful treat in historical mystery, and winds a very interesting tale entwining politics, secret affairs, seedy nightclub and seedier nightclub owners, a drunk detective on the wagon and his beautiful secretary/driver, a homeless man, and a charismatic artist involved with a group of Nazis in the United States during WWII. To be sure, this is not a typical historical tale of WWII life – the battles raging are on the mean streets of Buffalo New York and not on the front lines in Europe.
In summation, Bishop, the drunk detective awakens one morning to find several days have passed that he cannot account for, and with two bullets missing from his recently fired gun, and a curious little dog in his apartment. He never owned a dog. With a devastating hangover, he can only recall snatches of images in his mind, such as a woman with blonde hair, and soon discovers his Green Packard is missing. Thinking he left his car parked somewhere in front of one of his neighborhood haunts, he attempts to gather himself together and tries to figure out this mystery of the missing past few days.
Soon, the mystery hits him full force as he is reeled into a missing person case, a young black woman named Pearl DeGuye, a singer at one of the nightclubs; and he is hired, along with his very obese lawyer friend, by a local society dame, the wife of a headline-making artist, to track her husband and discover his infidelity.
Everything had changed after Pearl.
But something is off kilter when Bishop gets the feeling he visited the artist's home before, he remembers the rocking chairs on the porch... but he can't put his finger on the connections and the liquor-induced amnesia he is experiencing. With the help of his secretary, who drives him around town and tails different leads, not to mention helping him wring out, they put the pieces together and discover their town is hiding Nazis who are intent on taking advantage of Hitler's love for art. And when he gets too close to uncovering the scheme they are plotting, he is framed for the murder of the young Pearl DeGuye.
Bishop grew up with muffled conversations and cooking odors – frying onions and bacon – seeping through the floorboards from the restaurant. On nights his mother went out, he wouldn't sleep and would stare out that center window watching passing cars and passing people. He'd watch the cops and the drunks, the whores and the hustlers. He saw sidewalk fistfights and couples holding hands. He'd watch the men below and pick one to be his father, always choosing the tallest or the one with the broadest shoulders. The rhythm of the street became his own rhythm.
The flow of this novel is sheer genius and will transport a reader back to the early historical mysteries, full of clever one-liners and a perfect combination of noir and history. Mickey Spillane and Dashiell Hammett would be proud of this next generation author who takes their styles and not only matches them, but adds his own unique flair and voice to the genre. This is a novel dying to be made into a movie, and the characters are so well developed you imagine actors like Veronica Lake, Humphrey Bogart, or, in particular, actors from Spillane's movie “My Gun is Quick” which is another WWII-based historical mystery.
The lawyer had come by his nickname honestly. His face was cheek and jowl, hanging flesh that rippled in waves. His suits never fit. They were either too large and billowing or too tight and constricting. Today his pinstripes parachuted around him. He weighed three hundred pounds on a slim day and wheezed when he talked.
This is, without a doubt, a most entertaining novel full of all the expected and unexpected twists and turns in a historical mystery, and I, for one, am hoping that the author continues this as a series with Bishop and his little dog, Jake. Highly recommended.
The only thing worse is dealing with drunken gimps who think they're Sam Spade.
*****
“After Pearl” by Stephen G. Eoannou receives five stars from The Historical Fiction Company
Book Award
