Hell's Kitchen

Hell's Kitchen by Jeffery Deaver

This was the third, and final, installment of the “Location Scout” mysteries penned by Jeffery Deaver.  Actually, it was written under his pseudonym “William Jefferies” for whatever reason.  These books by Deaver aren’t as strong as most of his latter day thrillers, particularly the Lincoln Rhyme stories.  In these books, the protagonist is John Pellam, a veteran of many Hollywood productions, mostly as a stunt man.  Being a stunt man takes Pellam all over the country, so such settings for a mystery can always be fresh.

In this book, Pellam is venturing out on his own, so to speak, and is producing a documentary on the famed Hell’s Kitchen in West Manhattan.  Hell’s Kitchen, at least during the time this book was written, is not a happy place.  A lot of crime, drugs, crack mothers, and overworked social workers.  As the story opens, Pellam is on his way to continue a series of interviews with 70 year old Ettie Washington, a longtime resident of Hell’s Kitchen, when her building explodes in an inferno just as Pellam is walking up the stairs.  Both Pellam and Washington survive, and Pellam spends the book searching for the reason of the fire, trying to pinpoint the guilty party.

It won’t be easy.  Apparently the investigators think 70 year old Washington was responsible, so she’s quickly arrested and hauled away.  They don’t think she actually started the inferno, yet paid a professional whacked-out arsonist.  It seems the arsonist is continuing to strike all over Manhattan, so the authorities want Washington to confess, and talk about what she knows.   This way,  they can locate this loon before he can do too much more damage.  Of course, Pellam believes she’s innocent, so he spends this entire story being harassed by authorities since he’s “friends” with the woman, in addition to uncovering clues within this dangerous environment.

What I never figured out was: if this deranged arsonist/nut is running around picking random targets to incinerate, why do the authorities believe that he was paid by a 70 year old impoverished woman to start the first one?  Couldn’t the original fire been a random target as well?  And it seems a bit far fetched that a 70 year old woman whose lived here her entire life would be a person who could be considered a serious accomplice.  This was a big strike against this book for me.

So Pellam plows through the streets, talking to all sorts of undesirables and putting himself in harm’s way in many occasions.  These thugs don’t like strangers coming into their territory asking a lot of questions.  Since Pellam is a professional stunt man, he knows how to handle a weapon and defend himself pretty well, and he does have somewhat of a motivation.  He’s not exactly well off in the finance deparment, and he’s put a lot of his own money into this documentary, so if his star subject goes to prison, it doesn’t exactly make his product very marketable.

So we see him going from place to place within Hell’s Kitchen, and every environment that he’s visits is horribly dirty and disgusting.  This book almost makes you want to take a bath after reading.  As Deaver usually does, though, he introduces a lot of different characters, a lot of plot twists, and you’re never quite sure where he’s going.  He manages to fool and/or surprise the reader quite frequently so it does make the book a good read.  I just wish the location had been a bit more desirable - along with the main plot.  I’ll also say that Hell’s Kitchen is, in fact, a real place, but due to gentrification and the overall improvement of Midtown Manhattan, it’s not nearly the hell hole it once was.  Visitors to the Big Apple shouldn’t be too scared.   

This was my second of the three “Location Scout” books.  As much as I like Jeffery Deaver, I’m kind of hoping that we’ve seen the last of them.  They’re really not bad, it’s just that Deaver can, and has, done much better.