A Time Gone By by William Heffernan

Published by Simon & Schuster on August 1, 2003

New York City, 1945. A prominent judge is murdered in his home. Jake Downing and Jimmy Finn are the detectives assigned to the case. By the time they arrive at the murder scene, the police commissioner and Manny Troy are already there. Troy is "the boss of the city's Democrats." He makes sure that Downing and Finn provide round-the-clock protection for Cynthia, the judge's young widow, in addition to investigating the murder. Although Downing is married and about to have a baby, he becomes intimately involved with the woman he's supposed to be protecting.

New York City, 30 years later. Finn is retired and Downing, now chief of detectives, having laid his wife to rest, reopens the investigation of the judge's death. Downing has never wavered in his belief that an innocent man was executed for the crime.

The novel shifts between those two time frames, telling the story of the 1945 murder investigation and the story of its impact on Downing's life after three decades have passed. The story is also told from shifting points of view: sometimes as a third person narrative, sometimes in the first person from Downing's perspective. A couple of times the story is told in first person from Finn's perspective -- an odd choice that seems out of place, given that this is Downing's story, not Finn's.

A Time Gone By is a competent mystery that, unfortunately, seems too familiar. The scenes from 1945 attempt to develop a sense of noir that is overly reminiscent of a Bogart movie. The supporting characters are stereotypes: the Irish cop who speaks in a brogue; the beautiful young woman who is a hat check girl before she marries an older, powerful, abusive man; the corrupt politicians and nasty thugs. Only Downing is given a unique personality, and it isn't much of a personality. The investigation unfolds as the reader might expect, with few surprises at the end. The one twist that Heffernan provides in the last pages seems forced.

One last gripe: Downing tells the reader early on that the man who was executed for the judge's death didn't commit the crime but Heffernan beats the reader over the head with the claim that the guy deserved to die anyway ... for other unspecified crimes. That information is apparently intended to allow the reader to maintain sympathy for Downing, who is complicit in the wrongful execution, but it seemed to me to be an all-too-obvious device. If Downing let an innocent man die, after all, we shouldn't feel good about him; manipulating the reader's emotions by making us think the guy deserved his death just masks the impact of Downing's reprehensible actions. Heffernan engages in similar manipulation of the reader's feelings about Cynthia toward the novel's end. It was all just a little too contrived for me.

Having said all that, there are things I liked about A Time Gone By. Heffernan's prose fluid prose is often a pleasure to read. The story unfolds at a nice pace. The sense of place and of the post-war era is realistic. This isn't a bad novel at all, but it didn't grab me.

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