Lightning Men

A Novel

By: Thomas Mullen

Narrated by: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

From the acclaimed author of The Last Town on Earth comes the gripping follow-up to Darktown, a "combustible procedural that will knock the wind out of you" (The New York Times).

Officer Denny Rakestraw, "Negro officers" Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith, and Sergeant McInnis have their hands full in an overcrowded and rapidly changing Atlanta. It's 1950, and color lines are shifting and racial tensions are simmering. Black families - including Smith's sister and brother-in-law - are moving into Rake's formerly all-white neighborhood, leading some residents to raise money to buy them out while others advocate a more violent solution. Rake's brother-in-law, Dale, a proud Klansman, launches a scheme to rally his fellow Kluxers to save their neighborhood. When those efforts spiral out of control and leave a man dead, Rake is forced to choose between loyalty to family and the law.

He isn't the only one with family troubles. Boggs has outraged his preacher father by courting a domestic, and now her ex-boyfriend has been released from prison. As Boggs, Smith, and their all-black precinct contend with violent drug dealers fighting for turf in new territory, their personal dramas draw them closer to the fires that threaten to consume Atlanta once again.

With echoes of James Ellroy and Denis Lehane, Mullen demonstrates in Lightning Men why he's celebrated for writing crime fiction "with a nimble sense of history...quick on its feet and vividly drawn" (Dallas Morning News).

©2017 Thomas Mullen (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio

Involved and entertaining!

Another quality entry in the series. Really like this series and the way Mullen delves into the social complexities of the time and how it affects the protagonist s both black and white. Mullen is adept at explaining Jim Crow practices in a succinct but clear way without the story lulling. Waiting patiently for the next entry!

Wonderful listen!

I listened to “Darktown“ and loved it. “ I enjoyed “Lightning Men” even more. Highly believable characters that aren’t drawn too simplistically. Like Darktown, the book is set in racist Jim Crow Atlanta in the 1950s, and focuses particularly on the struggles of two black police officers, and secondarily on the struggles of a white officer trying to be less racist than the other whites around him. While the story focuses on black versus white community/housing and policing conflicts, nothing about this book is simplistically black and white. Humanity shines through in this book and its characters. All of the characters are drawn with highly realistic shades of gray. The narrator is good but would do well to learn how to vary his voice more and noticeably mimic black vs white dialects, when appropriate. Overall an extremely rewarding listen. Highly recommended!

The devil is in the details.

Thomas Mullens fleshes out the complex interplay of the 1940’s at the beginning of the disintegration of Jim Crow in Atlanta, and the hiring of the first black police officers, and what their lives were like The details of the betrayals, hatreds, corruption, and violence mixed in with the act of policing, and how it affects the community is riveting. Underneath each interaction, there is the need of white society and officers to degrade the existence of the blacks, and as history will bear out, the impossibility of keeping them permanently in their places.

Distopia

We have all read distoia novels like 1984, Brave New World, Anthem, and Handmaid's Tale. Those were imagined distopias meant to warn us. Darktown. however, is a real world distopia that we Americans created and tolerated for a century. We all shared some of the founders' scizophrenia as they put lofty visions of individual liberty on paper while practicing something very different in their private affairs. Let us continue to undo that distopia and its dying echos on paper and in our personal conduct.

A Little Too Much

Thomas Mullen certainly gives his readers the service they want with Lightning Men. Building off the previous novel, Darktown, Mullen goes deeper into the plight of Boggs and Smith and their careers as Atlanta’s first African-American police officers. He builds on the story of Officer Denny Rakestraw, a white officer who is not totally opposed to the idea of black officers, but finds himself living in a transition town – white suburbia now threatened to become another Darktown. Mullen’s plot twists and turns with real estate deals, moonshine and marijuana, and tensions between the always-incompetent KKK and their threatening successors, the Colombians. All and this more is breached cover-to-cover in one of the very few times that the old adage once made famous by Sir Mick about too much never being enough is unfortunately not true as Lightning Men suffers from that dreaded curse of sequelitis.

You know, that stigmata is not entirely fair. Lightning Men is a compelling, well-written, and highly entertaining read. Mullen fleshes out 1950s Atlanta and presents the attitude of the city and the blatant bigotry throughout. Mullen digs deeper with his plot, tying various, complicated threads to key characters and letting the reader watch it all unfold. Yet, some of this plot is too obtuse. The map presented sprawls and rambles as long and as wide as Peachtree Street. Maybe Mullen binge watches Game of Thrones and as such, gives too much importance to the B-, C-, and D-story arcs, thus taking away the importance – and the very relevance – of the A-story. Crime novel readers don’t want a ramble down a shady lane in the sun. They want a punch to the gut. Hard punches. With a blow to the nose and a killer uppercut to knock you out. Lightning Men doesn’t have enough punches, but plenty of weaving and feints.

Lightning Men is a worthy follow-up and is successful in structuring, then embellishing, the characters’ arcs. However, too many new characters are introduced and with that comes a level of convenience in working the plot around these new characters and as a result, the story suffers.

Just a little. And just too much.

But not enough to keep me away from my next visit to Darktown.

Excellent follow-up to Darktown

This is a complex and interesting novel/mystery The context is fascinating: the first African-American policemen in Atlanta in the 1940s and 1950s. The characters include black and white Atlantans from a variety of backgrounds. White neo-nazis (the lightning men), KKK-ers, black vets of WWII, white people trying to do the right thing; good policemen, and corrupt policemen. The women characters are complex as well. Thurgood Marshall has a cameo here! I wonder if he'll show up in the next one.

The narrator, Yahya Adul-Mateen, has a lovely, deep voice but unfortunately doesn't make any effort to distinguish one character from another. Sometimes I wasn't sure who was speaking. Maybe I've been spoiled by some of the great narrators I've heard here: the brilliant Gerard Doyle being my favorite but also Simon Vance, Davina Porter, and more.

Great book!

You cannot beat when a book combines a great fictional story with a history lesson about the city you live in. Mullen creates engaging realistic characters. I hope there is more!!

A STORY ABOUT OUR RACIST HISTORY

The writing was awesome kept me captivated and intrested. Contents extremely painful. Embarrassing Mind boggling

Riveting

Excellent in its honesty of the complexity of the human condition from all sides of the racial and economic divide, woven into riveting storytelling that holds you to the very end!

Good follow up ro Darktown.

I didn't enjoy it as much as the first book but the narrator was solid and the characters richly described. I would recommend it.