Redlined: A Novel of Boston
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This Boston neighborhood has become a jungle. The banks have REDLINED Jamaica Plain, crashing the housing market, opening the neighborhood to blockbusters and slumlords. Flynt was hired to halt it. His quest to stop the banks and find justice for Sandy Morgan will lead him through a dangerous labyrinth of corrupt politicians, bent churchmen and a gang of vicious Chinese mafiosi who will stop at nothing to thwart him.
Two interwoven plots work their way through this heart-stopping narrative. One is absolutely true. It tells the story of how a local community, skating along the razor's edge of decline, organized itself and saved the neighborhood. The other never really happened but, in the corrupt netherworld of Boston politics, very well might have.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wise (The French Blue) highlights a predatory housing practice redlining in this taut thriller set in 1974 Boston. Sandy Morgan, a neighborhood organizer working for the Jamaica Plain Social Action Committee, was helping to investigate a series of suspicious fires in abandoned properties in the area, until she was killed in an explosion caused by an arsonist in yet another vacant building. Morgan's death leads her boss, Jedediah Flynt, who's wracked with guilt, to redouble his efforts to find the people behind the arsons. Flynt is convinced that powerful people, who consider the neighborhood "too risky to do business with," have redlined it, choking off mortgages and insurance money. That policy "sets the stage for slumlords buying cheap for cash, racial steering and housing abandonment." Influential forces in the city oppose Flynt's idealistic crusade, and Morgan's successor, attractive Harvard student Alex Jordan, also winds up in jeopardy. Wise combines an accessible explanation of the nature and impact of redlining with a page-turning narrative. Fans of suspense fiction with a social conscience will be pleased. (Self-published)
Customer Reviews
Redlined
Redlined: A novel of Boston is a fabulous read. It is, also, my first introduction of reading a book by
Richard W. Wise. It definitely will not be the last. This book is one of those thrillers that will keep a reader captivated from start to finish. I enjoyed getting on this roller coaster of twists and turns. The story is full of action, mystery and suspense that kept me on the edge of my seat. I could not put it down until I was reading the very last page hours later.
Redlined: A novel of Boston takes readers back in time to the 1974 Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Richard W. Wise’s talent really shines through by telling this story. It is quite compelling to read. I enjoyed the main characters, Jedediah and Alex. They are a great team working together trying to solve as what is going on. I was not easily able to predict what would happen next. It is so so good.
I thought Redlined: A novel of Boston was a great read. I am giving it a very well deserved five plus stars. I highly recommend it for readers who enjoy a good suspense filled novel. I would love to read more by Richard W. Wise in the future. I am interested to find out where his imagination will take his readers to.
I received a copy of Redlined: A novel of Boston from the publisher. This review is one hundred percent my own honest opinion.