The Spies in Jimmy’s Place

The real-life 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping case anchors Mayo’s rip-roaring sequel to Jimmy the Stick. Former mob gunman Jimmy Quinn owns a New York City bar called Jimmy’s Place, a onetime speakeasy whose clientele ranges from gangsters to cops to everyday drunkards. In the previous novel, Jimmy helped authorities arrest Bruno Hauptmann for the abduction and murder of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh. Since then, he’s returned to managing the bar, running errands for gangsters including regular patron Meyer Lansky, and spending time with his thieving girlfriend, Connie Nix. When American Nazis murder his bouncer Fat Joe Beddoes, however, he decides payback is in order (“Joe was a son of a bitch, but he was our son of a bitch”). In his search for Joe’s killers, Jimmy stumbles into a sophisticated political plot involving bombs, German spies, and Hauptmann, which leads him to a series of violent confrontations. Mayo’s plotting is a little thin—the links between Hauptmann, the Nazis, and Jimmy are tenuous—but Jimmy is a well-drawn antihero, and there’s plenty of action. It’s a raucous good time. (Nov.)