Ocean Park (The Ocean Park Series Book 1)

This novel contains great writing. Nearly each paragraph has superb metaphors and similes. The second paragraph in the book, “…Conley snapped the collar of his leather jacket against the wind, exhaled a frosty breath….” You can see a “frosty breath.” Excellent. Through out the book Walsh follows the rule, “show don’t tell.”I just picked a couple of pages at random. Page 173, a man is being tortured, “his head wrapped in cellophane, covered with moving beads of water that felt like silver insects travelling hungry paths…. From the mask, …his face appeared as distorted as a reflection in a fun house mirror.”Page 190: “Sun reflected off moving cars, sparkling like a giant necklace lain on the ground.”Page 106: Walsh obviously knows something about boats. He calls the lines on a boat “lines” not ropes. “Weathered scows lay on their sides, as if they’d been lashed and scattered by a Nor’easter.”“Kendricks pointed to a solitary lobster boat in the harbor that listed toward them as if longing for shore.”Not to confuse you, this is not a boat book. It’s a murder book. I didn’t count all of the murders but there’s a bunch. All resolved by books end.Ocean Park is a terrific read, murder, police procedure, unfaithful wives, Asian organized crime, and child slavery.I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fine writing. I give it five stars because of the quality writing.

Mike Walsh sucks you into the quagmire of Ocean Park as a body is found in St. Ambrose Catholic Church. The homicide draws Detective Matt Conley into three wars. The first is with his wife whom he’s separated from and hopes to draw back into his life. His personal war escalates as she’s running for office and he’s trying to find the killer of Victor Rodriguez. The second war is between St. Ambrose and the archdiocese over the future of Conley’s church, and in which Father McCarrick, the church pastor, forces Conley to choose sides. And the third war is between rival Cambodian and Hispanic gangs over drug turf. As the wars conflagrate, Conley finds a surprising new ally in his reluctant partner, Lloyd Kendricks. Together they are willing to bend a few rules to protect a key witness, a Cambodian girl named Channary. All too quickly Conley’s wars collide leaving a trail of blood, bodies, and what ifs.Walsh wonderfully blends the run-down, outside-of-Boston suburb of Ocean Park with a cast of characters who are as individual as they are entertaining. The scene with Kendrick following Conley into Morgan’s Tap, a very rough bar, is one of the best scenes I’ve ever read in a book. Walsh builds the tension from the first page and doesn’t stop until the exciting climax.Whether you read the e-version, or like me, prefer the heft of a book in your hand, Ocean Park is well worth the price of admission.

The characters who inhabit the Massachusetts town of Ocean Park are chasing their own shadows, rarely catch them, but nonetheless gain glimpses needed to spur their quests onward.Matt Conley’s a good cop, heart-of-gold, has lost a child and may have lost his wife. Sheila Thompson, a social worker, in charge of a key witness, may feel affection for Matt, but he’s just out of her reach. Father McCarrick, an avuncular yet artful priest, in cahoots with Mrs. Blodgett, his housekeeper, go to extreme lengths to save their church, St. Ambrose, but the effort is doomed.These pursuits occur while a gangland war for the local drug trade wages, with consequences that reach to high government levels. The tone is set on the first page: “Tonight it was as dark as a confessional.” What follows is an engaging story in which the reader gropes over unsure paths, right along with the characters, to a conclusion that may not be as certain as Matt Conley believes.

Lots of good stuff going on in this story. Homicide detective work, ethnic gangs in a turf war, priests possibly faking miracles, human trafficking, plus a Cambodian gang leader whose powers border on mystical.Detective Mike Conley, the protagonist, has a failing marriage he's desperate to save, a circumstance not unlike his job. He toils daily in the hometown he loves, Ocean Park. It's a crumbling northeast mill town fifty years past its prime, and too often he feels powerless to stop it from sliding another step closer to oblivion. Immigrants, like his own ancestors, dominate the city, but today they're Cambodian and Hispanic, not Irish and Italian. Crime is as prevalent as when he grew up, but the current practitioners deal in savagery unknown in his formative years.Well paced action and crisp dialogue. Plot elements that are surprising yet plausible. Highly recommended.

Excellent book. I travel to the Boston area and Lynn MA for work. The authors writting style was so descriptive I could picture everything from the cold wind to the depressed areas in the book. I love his writting style and metaphors which increased my visualization of the scenes. He really caputred the character of the area and the people. If you like crime/mystery novels you will like this book.

Very likable characters and lots of action make this an entertaining read.