Charlesgate Confidential

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This fascinating, intriguing, and amusing mystery is told in repeated clusters of three chapters, each depicting a different time (1946, 1986, 2014) and a different stage in the life of Boston’s Charlesgate building (first, an in-decline hotel frequented by gangsters, then a dormitory for boozy, joshing college students, and finally a condominium). The heart of the story, recounted in the1946 chapters, is the heist of several valuable paintings from the Gardner museum, an event that triggers a flurry of murders, double-crossings, and paybacks. The 1986 chapters relate how a journalism student scours the Charlesgate’s basement, convinced the still-missing paintings are hidden there. They’re not…but they may be stashed nearby. A written record of his efforts surfaces in the 2014 chapters, sparking a second round of murders as new players resume the search. The ending is somewhat anticlimactic, but only in comparison to the excitement and tension generated by this original, clever, and highly effective way of telling the story. The reader is kept off balance yet fully engaged through 300+ pages, carried along by the intricacies of the time-shifts in the plot as well as the one-liner repartee, sometimes ribald, sometimes self-deprecating, always quick-fire. Charlesgate Confidential is a GREAT read.


Reviewed By:

Author Scott Von Doviak
Star Count /5
Format Hard
Page Count 384 pages
Publisher Hard Case Crime
Publish Date 2018-Sep-18
ISBN 9781785657177
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue December 2018
Category Mystery, Crime, Thriller
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