Chicago, Chicago. It's Michael Harvey's kind of town. The Windy City played a prominent role in his well-received debut novel, "The Chicago Way," and it does no less in the well-done follow-up. In each case, an event in the city's history is a key element in the plot: In the initial effort, it was the Chicago World's Fair and Exposition; in the current book, it is the Great Fire of 1871 which burned down the city.

The protagonist, Michael Kelly, is an ex-cop now PI who is retained by a former girlfriend currently married to one of the Mayor's aides. She is a battered wife and "hopes" Kelly can somehow get the husband to stop the beatings. In tailing the husband, Michael observes him entering an historic home then running out quickly. The owner is found inside, murdered in an unusual manner. What's it all about? There is a rumor that the Mayor's family set off the historical fire rather than the accepted tale of Mrs. O'Leary's cow. Does this tale tie in with the murder?

The title refers to the site of the Mayor's office in City Hall, and, of course, Chicago being Chicago, politics and a loose portrayal of the original Mayor Daly gives the author free reign to write about the power politics which have so often provided scandal but is a norm there, and to do so with panache.

Recommended.

This is not a "profound" work BUT it held my interest. I read it in just a few hours.

In Michael Harvey's second story featuring tough Chicago P. I. Michael Kelly, the reader is treated to a page-turning yarn that oozes the intrigues of Chicago. Mayoral politics, rugged cops, sleazy journalists and tarnished heroes share their dirty little secrets in a world where people go along only when it suits their own self interest. Harvey's writing captures a mood that will transcend the strength of the plot, and his characters are as gritty as you will find in today's fiction. The Fifth Floor is an improvement in style as well as a refinement of the characters introduced by Harvey's excellent debut novel, The Chicago Way. If this book is any indication, Harvey is getting better and we will be treated to more Michael Keely books in the near future.

With his second novel, "The Fifth Floor", following last year's "The Chicago Way", Michael Harvey has cemented his position as one of my "must read" authors in the urban noir genre. His style is infectious and spell-binding. His prose flows like a movie screen play and his sense of pacing and plotting is unassailable. As I said in my previous review of his work, his ability to paint vivid word pictures, especially of Chicago and its environs, makes me feel I have been there (which I haven't) and that I would recognize it when I someday see it.

This time around, Michael Kelly, former cop and current PI, is engaged in a domestic case involving an old girl friend who is being abused by her husband, Johnny Woods, a "fixer" for the mayor whose offices are located on "The Fifth Floor". After tailing Woods to a house where he discovers a homicide, Kelly soon discovers that a simple domestic violence case has morphed into a murder case that may involve a conspiracy of greed and power that can be traced all the way back to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Kelly's investigation soon leads to more bodies, more crimes, the greed and corruption of the Chicago mayor's office, and even an impending mayoral election. Kelly works with local character types that are well fashioned by his spot-on characterizations, such as Fred Jacobs, a pulitizer prize winning columnist, Vince Rodriquez and Dan Masters, police colleagues who use Kelly as a stalking horse to investigate the mayor's office, and an assortment of street characters, bartenders, and cab drivers. His dialogue is lively, believable, and never out of sync.

Kelly is a gumshoe clearly in a class with the Marlowe/Spade protagonists of old. He misses few clues and can make prophetic analytical leaps in his investigations. While he can be considered hard boiled, he is also somewhat of a renaissance man who reads and quotes Latin poetry and ancient philosophers. This is a highly recommended read as is "The Chicago Way" if you have not yet had the pleasure.

I'm not a fan of crime novels, but I *AM* a fan of historical context, so when I read the book's synopsis, I simply had to check it out. Consequently, I read "The Fifth Floor" before reading "The Chicago Way." Though Harvey's first book introduces the characters, I nonetheless had no difficulty assessing the characters in "The Fifth Floor." It can stand by itself. I found the story so well-crafted that I, myself, began to question whether Mrs. O'Leary's cow started the fire. And I liked the tipping of the hat to current Chicago and presidential politics. When Harvey wrote that there was an Illinois' Senatorial position opening up next year - predicting an Obama win - it was so natural and so contemporary. Like I said, I'm no fan of crime novels, but I found myself to be a fan of Michael Harvey.

From page one of THE FIFTH FLOOR, a follow-up to 2007's THE CHICAGO WAY, it is evident that former police officer Michael Kelly is no ordinary private eye. When Kelly's ex-lover, Janet Woods, shows up at his office wearing sunglasses to conceal her battered face, Kelly slides a book of poetry across his desk. He then translates for Janet the first line of an ancient poem written by Catullus: "Odi et amo" --- I hate and I love.

It's not the first time that the well-read PI has tried to convince Janet to break free from the cycle of abuse, take her teenage daughter, Taylor, and leave Johnny Woods for good. Janet isn't searching for inspiration from an ancient Latin poem. She isn't seeking advice from Kelly and doesn't want her husband to know she has hired a private investigator. But she does agree to let Kelly trail Johnny. Kelly hopes he can talk some sense into Johnny, a well paid "fixer" who works for the mayor on the fifth floor of Chicago's City Hall.

Kelly enlists the help of Fred Jacobs, a reed-thin-Camel-smoking-deeply-paranoid-Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative reporter --- and a source of information about Chicago's politicians and elite. Once Kelly gets a lead on Johnny's daily schedule, he tails the thick-necked bruiser's cab to a neighborhood on a tree-lined street in the old-money part of town. From a safe distance, Kelly observes Johnny entering an elegant cottage. Almost immediately, Johnny rushes out with a shocked look on his face.

After Kelly enters the cottage, he discovers the reason for Johnny's quick retreat. Hanging from the second floor railing is the body of an elderly man whose mouth is stuffed with sand. Kelly briefly examines the victim and crime scene before making his own speedy exit. He later calls the police from a pay phone to anonymously report the murder. The next day, after reading a report about the man's death in the newspaper, Kelly senses a cover-up in the making. While the article about the dead man includes the fact that he had been an amateur historian with a special interest in the Chicago fire, there's no mention of a homicide.

Kelly's discovery of the body and his deepening interest in the case propel him on a collision course with the police department and some of Chicago's most powerful and prominent citizens. With the help of some trusted friends, the fast-talking, street-smart and gritty Chicagoan uses his intellect and broad shoulders to stand up to all manner of crooks and thugs.

Author Michael Harvey has created a page-turner with a damaged yet interesting hero worth rooting for. THE FIFTH FLOOR is a novel about the worst and the best of the human condition --- power, greed, corruption and hate; loyalty, sacrifice, courage and love. Vivid writing, snappy dialogue and fast-paced drama, along with the mystery and intrigue of Chicago and its legendary fire, make THE FIFTH FLOOR an end-of-summer sizzler.

--- Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt

In Chicago, private investigator Michael Kelly is working a simple domestic violence case although he knows this one is personal. His former girlfriend Janet hires him to follow her abusive husband Johnny Woods, who works for the city's mayor as a fixer of potentially embarrassing problems. Michael wants to get Janet and her daughter Taylor to a safe house as he fears what Woods is capable of doing, but the woman warns him not to make it personal.

However, his surveillance quickly proves the case is much more complex when he finds a body inside an old house. As he digs into the murder he stumbled upon, Kelly begins to see connections back to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 including a cover-up back then, but still in effect, involving two prominent wealthy families with the final solution of eradicating the undesirable Irish. Afterward he is forced to visit the infamous City Hall's Fifth Floor for a lecture by the mayor to back off or else. However, Kelly begins to feel like Mrs. O'Leary's cow when the modern day killer sets him up to take the fall for the corpse he found.

Still a frustrated Cubs fan and attracted to a judge he wants to call but never seems to, Michael is a terrific hardboiled private investigator who makes it to THE FIFTH FLOOR where he assumes is the wood shed for those embarrassing the powers. His second urban noir thriller (see THE CHICAGO WAY) is a superb whodunit that ties current Windy City activity to the 1871 inferno. The star investigates both even as he struggles to stay out of jail as a clever killer perfectly frames him reminding him about that cow held culpable by the myth (mindful of "Professor" Robert Wuhl's underlying assumption in "Assume the Position".

Harriet Klausner

In Harvey's second Chicago noir, ex-cop and private investigator Michael Kelly finds himself knee deep in a scandal that goes all the way back to the infamous Chicago Fire of 1871, and its possible origin as an attempt by two powerful families to eliminate the city's Irish immigrants by burning down the slums. While on a surveillance case tailing an ex-girlfriend's abusive husband (who happens to be one of the mayor's personal hatchet men) in the hopes of discovering something she can use against him, Kelly stumbles upon a murder scene that reaches into Chicago's sordid past, with its money- and power-grabbing elite, and their connection to the city's long-running political machine. Seems that machine is still humming: after digging a little too deeply into the murder he uncovered, Kelly is summoned to City Hall's notorious fifth floor, where he is warned off the case by the mayor himself. Naturally Kelly is undeterred, and things get more complicated and dangerous, with more bodies turning up and an attempted frame-up of Kelly for the crimes. P.I. Michael Kelly is a wonderfully flawed but honorable character created by a talented noir stylist, and his tenacious efforts to expose the wrongdoings of Chicago's most ruthlessly powerful and respected citizens keep you rooting for the this appealing underdog. Extra points for the colorful hardboiled dialogue.
Also recommended: A Stranger Lies There - a superior desert-noir set in Palm Springs, it won the Malice Domestic Award for best first mystery.

Harvey has written an entertaining thriller with historical interest, tying a current murder and subsequent investigation to the Chicago Fire of 1871, the "Mrs. O'Leary's cow" theory too easy in light of another explanation that crops up in the 1970s. A tongue-in-cheek article printed on April Fools Day that perhaps touches too close to the truth ignites a fear of scrutiny originating on the fifth floor of City Hall, the mayor's powerful political domain. Protagonist Mike Kelly, ex-cop, now a PI, falls into the case peripherally, through a former girlfriend married to Johnny Woods, one of the mayor's fix-it men; Janet Woods requests Kelly's assistance in a domestic dispute- the fact that Woods regularly uses her as a punching bag, all too frequently of late. Tracking Johnny with an eye to gaining leverage in Janet's domestic situation, Kelly stumbles upon facts that lead indisputably to the Chicago Fire and the economic rise of a powerful Chicago political dynasty.

Since many American cities are built on the opportunistic acquisition of wealth from the misfortune of others, sleight of hand in the pursuit of great fortunes, a lot of people are uncomfortable with Kelly's snooping, including cops, journalists and anyone critical to the mayor's power base. Every clue leads directly to the fifth floor: "There you could catch a glimpse of ambition, the faintest whiff of avarice and the footsteps of those who curried favor." The Chicago police are cautious, understandably avoiding the mayor's wrath. Whoever he is dealing with, Kelly soon learns they play hardball, appropriately vigilant after a couple of threatening incidents. Harking back to his earlier novel, The Chicago Way, Harvey ties the current tale to Kelly's past, particularly the death of a friend whose loss continues to haunt him. Cracking wise like the Phillip Marlowe character of noir fiction, this hero is more of a Renaissance man, not nearly as hard-boiled as his rhetoric would indicate, harboring the usual human flaws and dreams of his contemporaries, including the fallout of romance past.

The co-creator and executive producer of TV's "Cold Case Files", Harvey's writing is clear, action-directed, the pace consistent, the characters classic Chicago types. With sharp, not too edgy dialog, this is a relatable protagonist, his imagination sparked by ancient Chicago history, the stuff of legends, especially a mayor who holds the city in the palm of his hand (OK, so I am picturing Al Pacino in this role). Cities do love their myths, but even more, they love their scandals, uncovering the unremitting greed and mendacity of public servants glutted on the spoils of political power. Add in a teen-aged girl terrified for her mother's life and there is enough personal investment for Kelly to persist regardless of the danger, a romp through the machinations of politics and a very distressed client. Luan Gaines/2008.