Boomtown (A Delia Mariola Novel)

July 24, 2023
Carter’s suspenseful third outing for Det. Delia Mariola (after 2022’s The Hostage) again exploits its Rust Belt setting for maximum grit. The tiny town of Baxter has hitched its economic hopes to plans for a massive new Nissan factory; meanwhile, a massive crime wave is alarming the incumbent mayor, who’s facing a primary challenge. Both the mayor and key players in the Nissan deal are putting pressure on Mariola and her officers to keep crime down when the mangled corpse of a local sex worker turns up. To make matters worse, rumors are swirling that both a group of New York City mobsters and a violent motorcycle gang called the Horde are poised to arrive in Baxter looking to exploit the influx of cash from the Nissan factory. Carter alternates perspectives between Mariola; Charlie, an ex-con who dumped the sex worker’s body but claims not to know how she died; and Maggie Miller, who believes the dead woman is her sister. Efficiently attending to each of the numerous conflicts and characters, Carter drives the narrative toward a ripping climax and adds vivid new shades to Baxter and its neighboring communities. Admirers of Ace Atkins’s down-and-dirty Quinn Colson books will find much to like. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber Assoc.

August 1, 2023
Capt. Delia Mariola of the Baxter Police struggles to contain a tidal wave of felonies spewing forth uncontrolled from a place where she has no jurisdiction. Moments after Nissan announced its plans to build a new auto assembly plant just over the line in Sprague County, Boomtown, an enclave of trailers and Quonset huts financed by shadowy figures who'd just as soon stay shadowy, sprang up to accommodate all those construction workers. Faced with nonnegotiable deadlines for every stage, the workers are naturally eager to fill their time off with life's simple pleasures: drugs, gambling, whores. New York gang leader Ricky Ricci, spotting an opportunity from more than a thousand miles away, has designated ambitious Charlie Setter manager of Boomtown's criminal operations. That's why Charlie, in Carter's opening scene, is driving through town with the body of overdosed prostitute Corey Miller in his trunk, ultimately ditching her in Oakland Gardens when enforcer Dominick Costa announces that the ground is too frozen to dig a grave. Determined to end any competition from the Horde, a local gang, Charlie executes biker/pimp Titus Klint when he won't listen to reason, and the discovery of both corpses puts him squarely in the crosshairs of Delia--and of Aaron and Maggie Miller, Corey's father and sister, who respond without advance notice to a "DO YOU KNOW THIS WOMAN?" poster bent on revenge and highly skeptical that it can be brought about through official channels. Carter uses the alternating perspectives of Charlie, Delia, and Maggie to explore the moral, legal, and sociological depths of Boomtown, subordinating mysterymongering to a pitiless anatomy of a Midwestern hell. The most striking feature of Carter's representation of Delia is that although she's utterly tough and professional in her job and open about her relationship with child-abuse investigator Zoe Parillo, she's surprisingly bashful about appearing with Zoe in public as a couple in her conservative Midwestern town. This conflict at once humanizes her and complicates her relationship to the hometown she's sworn to protect and serve. A rich and reeking swamp full of exploitation, despair, violence, and summary justice.

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