by Michael Harvey
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Product Description
Michael Harvey’s sizzling follow-up to The Chicago Way (“A magnificent debut that should be read by all”—John Grisham; “This book heralds the arrival of a major new voice”—Michael Connelly) opens with a murder in contemporary Chicago and winds its way back to Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
When PI Michael Kelly is hired by an ex-flame to tail her abusive husband, he expects trouble of a domestic rather than a historical nature. Life, however, is not so simple. The tail leads Kelly to an old house on Chicago’s North Side. Inside it, the private investigator finds a body and, perhaps, the answer to one of Chicago’s most enduring mysteries: who started the Great Chicago Fire and why. The ensuing investigation takes Kelly to places he’d rather not go, specifically, City Hall’s fifth floor, where the mayor is feeling the heat and looking to play for keeps. Ultimately, Kelly finds himself in a world where nothing is quite what it seems, face-to-face with a killer bent on rewriting history and staring down demons from a past he never knew he had.
A fast-stepping, intricately woven narrative, rich with the history and atmosphere of a great city, The Fifth Floor is a worthy successor to Harvey’s critically acclaimed debut.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Hard Politics, 2008-11-03
Chicago, Chicago. It's Michael Harvey's kind of town. The Windy City played a prominent role in his well-received debut novel, "The Chicago Way," and it does no less in the well-done follow-up. In each case, an event in the city's history is a key element in the plot: In the initial effort, it was the Chicago World's Fair and Exposition; in the current book, it is the Great Fire of 1871 which burned down the city.
The protagonist, Michael Kelly, is an ex-cop now PI who is retained by a former girlfriend currently married to one of the Mayor's aides. She is a battered wife and "hopes" Kelly can somehow get the husband to stop the beatings. In tailing the husband, Michael observes him entering an historic home then running out quickly. The owner is found inside, murdered in an unusual manner. What's it all about? There is a rumor that the Mayor's family set off the historical fire rather than the accepted tale of Mrs. O'Leary's cow. Does this tale tie in with the murder?
The title refers to the site of the Mayor's office in City Hall, and, of course, Chicago being Chicago, politics and a loose portrayal of the original Mayor Daly gives the author free reign to write about the power politics which have so often provided scandal but is a norm there, and to do so with panache.
Recommended.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Not deep, but fun., 2008-10-24
This is not a "profound" work BUT it held my interest. I read it in just a few hours.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Feel the Chicago Heat, 2008-10-16
In Michael Harvey's second story featuring tough Chicago P. I. Michael Kelly, the reader is treated to a page-turning yarn that oozes the intrigues of Chicago. Mayoral politics, rugged cops, sleazy journalists and tarnished heroes share their dirty little secrets in a world where people go along only when it suits their own self interest. Harvey's writing captures a mood that will transcend the strength of the plot, and his characters are as gritty as you will find in today's fiction. The Fifth Floor is an improvement in style as well as a refinement of the characters introduced by Harvey's excellent debut novel, The Chicago Way. If this book is any indication, Harvey is getting better and we will be treated to more Michael Keely books in the near future.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Another "Do Not Miss" by Michael Harvey!, 2008-10-13
With his second novel, "The Fifth Floor", following last year's "The Chicago Way", Michael Harvey has cemented his position as one of my "must read" authors in the urban noir genre. His style is infectious and spell-binding. His prose flows like a movie screen play and his sense of pacing and plotting is unassailable. As I said in my previous review of his work, his ability to paint vivid word pictures, especially of Chicago and its environs, makes me feel I have been there (which I haven't) and that I would recognize it when I someday see it.
This time around, Michael Kelly, former cop and current PI, is engaged in a domestic case involving an old girl friend who is being abused by her husband, Johnny Woods, a "fixer" for the mayor whose offices are located on "The Fifth Floor". After tailing Woods to a house where he discovers a homicide, Kelly soon discovers that a simple domestic violence case has morphed into a murder case that may involve a conspiracy of greed and power that can be traced all the way back to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Kelly's investigation soon leads to more bodies, more crimes, the greed and corruption of the Chicago mayor's office, and even an impending mayoral election. Kelly works with local character types that are well fashioned by his spot-on characterizations, such as Fred Jacobs, a pulitizer prize winning columnist, Vince Rodriquez and Dan Masters, police colleagues who use Kelly as a stalking horse to investigate the mayor's office, and an assortment of street characters, bartenders, and cab drivers. His dialogue is lively, believable, and never out of sync.
Kelly is a gumshoe clearly in a class with the Marlowe/Spade protagonists of old. He misses few clues and can make prophetic analytical leaps in his investigations. While he can be considered hard boiled, he is also somewhat of a renaissance man who reads and quotes Latin poetry and ancient philosophers. This is a highly recommended read as is "The Chicago Way" if you have not yet had the pleasure.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Enjoyed it from cover-to-cover, 2008-09-28
I'm not a fan of crime novels, but I *AM* a fan of historical context, so when I read the book's synopsis, I simply had to check it out. Consequently, I read "The Fifth Floor" before reading "The Chicago Way." Though Harvey's first book introduces the characters, I nonetheless had no difficulty assessing the characters in "The Fifth Floor." It can stand by itself. I found the story so well-crafted that I, myself, began to question whether Mrs. O'Leary's cow started the fire. And I liked the tipping of the hat to current Chicago and presidential politics. When Harvey wrote that there was an Illinois' Senatorial position opening up next year - predicting an Obama win - it was so natural and so contemporary. Like I said, I'm no fan of crime novels, but I found myself to be a fan of Michael Harvey.
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