Book Review: A Killing On The Hill by Robert Dugoni

Young Will Schumacher considers himself lucky. Though poor and often hungry, he has steady work as a reporter for Seattle’s Daily Star, and a guaranteed one meal a day at the lodging house where he boards. That’s a lot more than most can say in 1933, with the whole country in the throes of the Great Depression. Even though he’d been forced to move out west by dire circumstances back in his Missouri hometown, he has a job he enjoys, with prospects for advancement, and the interest of a beautiful girl. 

Will’s luck shines even brighter when he gets a phone call early one morning from the city’s most celebrated police detective, Ernie Blunt. The chief detective has a tip for the rookie reporter, concerning a shooting in a glamorous nightclub up on Profanity Hill. Will rushes to the scene and discovers a story that could turn out to be the case of the century. If he plays his cards right, he might be able to make his name in the process.

George Miller, the owner of the Pom Pom Club, claims that former prizefighter Frankie Ray had been demanding money and threatening him with a gun while in a drunken rage. Miller swears that he wrestled the gun away and only shot Ray in self-defense. Rumor has it, though, that the fight was really over a beautiful woman. Blunt quickly puts paid to Miller’s original story, sending the case to trial. Given the titillating circumstances and colorful characters involved, all of Seattle—if not more of the country—is soon agog, breathlessly following coverage of the proceedings. Will is proud to be the reporter with most of the breaking news and, under the guidance of his editor Howard “Phish” Phishbaum, most of the narrative pizzazz.

But the longer the trial continues, the more convinced Will becomes that greater political machinations are at work behind the scenes. He might have once been a relatively naive kid from the Midwest, but his career as a reporter so far has honed both his curiosity and his smarts. Corruption, he realizes uneasily, is far more prevalent in Seattle than he’d expected, especially once he sees the list of the Pom Pom Club’s wealthy and powerful patrons. Despite the police releasing this list to the city’s three major newspapers, Will is surprised that not one of them has decided to print it. While he expects that chicanery from the other, more partisan papers, he’s puzzled that Phish hasn’t published:

[I]t seemed like the kind of information Phish thrived on. He steadfastly maintained the Daily Star’s independence from such politics. When I asked him about it, Phish had a ready answer.

 

“You and I both know what we received isn’t the full list,” Phish said. “We’re being partially fed with the hope our curiosity will be satisfied. If we publish some but not all the names, the impact—were we to later obtain the full list—would be diluted. By not publishing the list, we maintain leverage—the fear that we know all the names on the list, and we won’t be hand-fed by the police or the politicians. We remain independent.”

As Will continues to cover the trial and investigate the circumstances surrounding it, he finds himself caught in moral quandaries that have no easy answers. Who can he trust? Who can he believe? And who will have no hesitation about lying to his face before shooting him as soon as his back is turned?

Not even his personal life can remain untainted by political affairs outside of his control. While the initial success of reporting affords him both a raise and the ability to properly court the girl he’s interested in, her father, an Italian baker, has other ideas:

Mr. Giovacchini’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He said, “Schumacher?”

 

“Yes,” I said. “William Schumacher.”

 

“German,” he said.

 

“Yes,” I said. “Both my parents are German. They–”

 

He cut me off with a raised hand and shook his head. “No. My daughter will not go out with a German sympathizer.”

 

“I’m… I’m not a German sympathizer,” I stuttered.

 

“No,” he said again. This time his voice louder and gruffer. “Get out of my pastry shop.”

 

“Papa,” Amara said.

 

“Do not question me,” Mr. Giovacchini said. “My daughter will not go out with a German sympathizer.”

 

“Arturo,” Amara’s mother said, stepping forward.

 

“No!” he said again, more adamant. Then to me, “Out! Get out!”

Robert Dugoni perfectly captures both the personal and political matters that swirl around his fictional protagonist, even as he skilfully bases this historical novel on a very real crime. Actual nightclub owner George Moore had been brought to trial for the “underworld” shooting of Frankie Ray under very similar circumstances. The famed Seattle trial attorney who defended him posited the relatively new strategy of self-defense in hopes of an acquittal. The newspaper coverage of the time inspired Mr. Dugoni to recreate that milieu in this wildly entertaining and convincingly authentic legal thriller. Will makes for a very sympathetic narrator, guiding modern readers through the nuances of the time with heart, moral depth and more than just a little bit of the panache that does his employer proud.