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Book Summary and Reviews of Lightning Men by Thomas Mullen

Lightning Men by Thomas Mullen

Lightning Men

A Novel (The Darktown Series)

by Thomas Mullen

  • Critics' Consensus (3):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Sep 2017, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

From the acclaimed author of The Last Town on Earth comes the gripping follow-up to Darktown.

Officer Denny Rakestraw and "Negro Officers" Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith have their hands full in an overcrowded and rapidly changing Atlanta. It's 1950 and racial tensions are simmering as black families, including Smith's sister, begin moving into formerly all-white neighborhoods. When Rake's brother-in-law launches a scheme to rally the Ku Klux Klan to "save" their neighborhood, his efforts spiral out of control, forcing Rake to choose between loyalty to family or the law.

Across town, Boggs and Smith try to shut down the supply of white lightning and drugs into their territory, finding themselves up against more powerful foes than they'd expected. Battling corrupt cops and ex-cons, Nazi brown shirts and rogue Klansmen, the officers are drawn closer to the fires that threaten to consume the city once again.

With echoes of Walter Mosley and Dennis 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).

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Mullen again brilliantly combines a suspenseful plot with a searing look at a racist [1950s] South." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. Mullen effectively uses the police procedural format to shine a light on the daily indignities and violence blacks suffered in the pre–civil rights South, while delivering a plot that never lets up on suspense." - Booklist

"It deserves a place on every suspense reader's list." - Library Journal

"This volume, together with its predecessor, suggests strongly that Mullen is working on an epic of mid-20th-century American transformation. If so, the growth of his three protagonists promises to be both fascinating and painful to watch." - Kirkus

"This is an extraordinarily talented writer working at the top of his game - each character, plot thread, scene, and sentence is a carefully crafted gem. Lightning Men and Darktown are must-read novels." - Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author

This information about Lightning Men was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Lani

A timely reminder
Thomas Mullen's previous book Darktown had me in its grips. Even when it was under the radar, I kept pushing my copy on people telling them they HAD to read it or would be missing out on a gem. With my expectations so high, I couldn't wait to get my hands on # 2 of the trilogy. Firstly, I can say that I did enjoy the book but it didn't have the pull and the horror that enveloped me with the first novel. Timely, thought is, in light of what happened in Charlottesville, and a vehicle to discuss the elements of racism. Set in the racially charged neighborhoods of Atlanta in the 1950's, the story continues with the black officers trying to enforce standards in their community with little support from the white police officers. Black families are beginning to move into formerly all white neighborhoods with increasing displeasure from the community. Rake, a white officer, who tries to be fair, finds out that his bigoted brother in law, Dale, a member of the Klu Klux clan, has set out to help his clan fix that problem. What follows is a world skyrocketing out of control, where family ties and loyalty are pitted against the law and drugs and booze infect their society and all officers have to determine where their red line exists..

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Author Information

Thomas Mullen Author Biography

Thomas Mullen is the internationally bestselling author of several previous novels, including Darktown, an NPR Best Book of 2016, which was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Southern Book Prize, the Indies Choice Book Award, and was nominated for or won prizes in France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The follow-up, Lightning Men, was named one of the Top Ten Crime Novels of 2017 by The New York Times and was shortlisted for a CWA Dagger Award. His debut, The Last Town on Earth, set during the 1918 flu pandemic, was named Best Debut Novel of 2006 by USA Today and was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for excellence in historical fiction. He lives in Atlanta.

Link to Thomas Mullen's Website

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