Sausalito Ferry to Hell: (2 Sean O'Farrell Mystery)

Mark McCracken's private eye novel The Sausalito Ferry to Hell features San Francisco based shamus Sean O'Farrell. It is a period piece set during the 1930's though the period never figures into McCracken's narrative in an important way. McCracken, like many practitioners of this style, makes great use of setting and he familiarizes readers early on with San Francisco and its environs. It isn't Raymond Chandler and Los Angeles level where the city is practically another character in the novel, but McCracken does a respectable job of emphasizing its importance. O'Farrell, as a character, is a mix of the Hammett styled rough-hewn private investigator, but there are shades of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer present in the detective's more vulnerable moments. It makes for an effective combination. From the top of Nob Hill to the bottom of San Francisco Bay, it's a hell of a ride. The mob is demanding answers, and they want them now. A ferryboat captain wants his missing daughter found. An oil company executive is in danger, can he and his family be protected? The new district attorney hates private eyes, take a number pal, so does everybody else. Danger is in the alley and around every corner in San Francisco. From Coit Tower to the bottom of the San Francisco Bay, can it be more dangerous than the last time around? This could be it, one final case for Private Eye Sean O'Farrell, one last showdown with it all ending with a ride on THE SAUSILTO FERRY TO HELL.

Review :
Mark McCracken's private eye novel The Sausalito Ferry to Hell features San Francisco based shamus Sean O'Farrell. It is a period piece set during the 1930's though the period never figures into McCracken's narrative in an important way. McCracken, like many practitioners of this style, makes great use of setting and he familiarizes readers early on with San Francisco and its environs. It isn't Raymond Chandler and Los Angeles level where the city is practically another character in the novel, but McCracken does a respectable job of emphasizing its importance. O'Farrell, as a character, is a mix of the Hammett styled rough hewn private investigator, but there are shades of Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer present in the detective's more vulnerable moments. It makes for an effective combination. The novel begins with O'Farrell recovering from a gunshot wound. The recovery is physical and emotional. O'Farrell initially succumbs to self-pity but soon overcomes it. This quasi-preamble is effective, but delays the proper start of the novel until nearly fifty pages in. Some readers will enjoy such "scene setting" while others will balk. Like many protagonists in this genre, O'Farrell has a number of relationships in his life rather than following the loner model for private investigators established by Chandler's Philip Marlowe. O'Farrell, in an unusual twist, is a frequent church parishioner. One cannot readily imagine any of the classic private eyes as religiously observant and it informs O'Farrell with a morality we don't typically encounter in genre fiction of this type. One of the many key differences between the hardboiled school and other mysteries is how there is rarely a "mystery" per se in the former. The private eye novel adopts character and setting as its usual purview and McCracken's work is no exception. Some of the characters are "types" more than fully fleshed out personalities, but he renders the novel's central cast well with well chosen brushstrokes rather than belaboring their appearance, connections, and attributes. There is an assortment of typographical errors in the digital text but never at such a level that it mars the reading experience. McCracken has an obvious love for the form he communicates throughout the entirety of the novel; it sometimes borders on sentimentality, but never in an egregious way. He conveys action in often gripping fashion and the ending will likely satisfy many, if not all, readers. Mark McCracken's The Sausalito Ferry to Hell is a breezy read despite its length and will entertain casual consumers and devotees of the hardboiled school alike without ever seeming like a pastiche.