KEY POINTS:
If you are going to sit down and wind your way through over 600 pages of a book, it had better have two things: a really good plot and a ripper of a pace. Dark Hearts has the plot but is remiss when it comes to the pace - more like the slow chug of the locomotive that appears in the first chapter than the two fast-moving heroines of the book.
The main problem is that as with many novels based on specific periods in history, Dark Hearts has been well researched, but the authors have been self-indulgent, adding too much information that stilts the pace and overloads the senses. However, once you are hooked on the plot, you will probably plough through the slower pages of long-winded description and historical minutiae to find answers to the many mysteries contained in the multi-layered storyline.
The novel follows the progress of Emily Strauss, a young female reporter determined to make her name with a story of the Chicago underworld. However, chasing her lead quickly turns into chasing another young woman, Anna Zemeckis, who is about to become a victim of the seedy underbelly of the modern city and who can give Strauss the story that could make her career.
Emily Strauss reminded me of an old-fashioned Nancy Drew, and her character is fairly one-dimensional (feisty girl reporter with her eye on the prize), as are most of the others, but the storyline winds its way between the upper echelons of Chicago society and the very depths of the immigrant population at the time, and Strauss is a good vehicle to show the reader both sides of the coin.
*Random House: $36.99
- Sunday Extra, HoS
