»Carter Beats The Devil

From the setting in post-'quake, post-Depression San Francisco (thrilling!) to the themes (of romance and adventure, although stopping short of swashbuckling), and especially because of the thrilling series of escapes, I found Carter Beats The Devil one of the most engaging novels I have read. Treading the same landscape of Americana as the Michael Chabon's Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, but with fewer of the deep issues of cultural identity, Glen David Gold has produced an outstanding first novel. The quality of his historical and topical research shines through each page, but he makes the characters -- including the protagonist, drawn directly from current events -- entirely his own. This book is fully on the novel side of historical novel, and the plot, secondary characters and agonistes all come from Gold's pen. His sentences roll together merrily, and his dialogue evokes not only the era but the past-times and trades of the characters.