Synopsis: After World War II, tensions rise in a Southern city ruled by organized crime, touching countless residents as they struggle to make sense of the new world. A sudden act of violence sets off a series of bloody events between the police and mafia as they lash out against one another. As the violence worsens, desperation grows to stop it, by any means necessary.

Review: Two Dead is a historical crime fiction by Van Jensen and Nate Powell published by Gallery 13 in 2019. It takes multiple elements rooted in fact and blends them together in a pressure cooker story.

Gideon Kemp is returning home at the behest of his politician uncle. Gideon is a war hero (though he rejects the honorific), an FBI academy graduate, and he’s studied law. He seems like the perfectly straight arrow John Q Law type brought to town to bring down the mob. Kevin Costner’s Elliot Ness in The Untouchables (1987) comes to mind. Except this introduction is the second scene in the book. The first scene in the book shows the reader his war experiences and why he rejects the war hero title. He’s done some bad shit and is haunted by it. 

Kemp gets paired up with Bailey, the old man Chief of Detectives with schizophrenia. Bailey is a law man from the previous century. He’s kicking in doors and blasting mobsters. Why prosecute a criminal when you can just blast ‘em to hell amirite? He sees the fight against the mob from the street level and believes you have to bring the fight to them. Kemp is there to balance him out and bring the department into the modern era.

In the swirl of sadistic mobsters, cops, corrupt politicians, and wanna be G-men is a pair of Black brothers on different sides of the law, Jacob and Esau. Esau feels the pull of the hustle and easy money and he’s willing to work with mobsters. Jacob is head of the local Black militia unofficial police department that handles things on “their side of town”. These two men love each other very much and also are constantly butting heads.

There’s a lot of story packed into these 250 pages as these characters and their relationships weave together and slam into each other. There is a sympathetic and nuanced eye cast towards many of the characters with the exception of the gangsters and politicians (they’re the same picture).

A story like this runs the risk of casting too positive a light on law enforcement. While we are meant to be sympathetic towards our protagonist, the story largely avoids this trap by showing the shit side of the town cops and committing to something of a full dark ending.

Verdict: positive/highly recommended

Availability: Print, Digital, request via library