Isle of Joy
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

*Starred Review* This early Winslow thriller is a jewel in desperate need of rediscovering. A mix of historical fiction and espionage novel, it stars Walter Withers, a second-generation spook who does the unthinkable quits the game at the height of the Cold War (1958) and returns to New York, his isle of joy, where he gets a regular job as a private investigator with a company doing mostly corporate work. A nattily dressed, smooth-talking man about town, he draws what should be a plum gig, providing security for a golden boy Massachusetts senator and presidential hopeful, Joe Keneally (yes, the Kennedy connection is intended). Withers' assignment is to keep a Swedish starlet occupied and out of the philandering senator's bed, or, at the very least, to keep the press in the dark about what Keneally does in the dark. When the starlet winds up dead in Withers' room at the Plaza, he becomes a murder suspect. Winslow masterfully incorporates real-life facts about Jack, Jackie, and Bobby into the tale, throwing in a few tantalizing fictional extras (Jackie's affair with a young, Jack Kerouac-like writer!). The plot is superbly stitched together, leading to a stunningly orchestrated finale that suggests Brian Garfield's similarly intricate Hopscotch (1975), but what really makes the book sing is Winslow's portrait of New York. With that irresistible blending of nostalgia and crisp detail one finds in the classic black-and-white photographs of the era, Winslow captures the city at the tipping point when postwar society met the bohemian era. Withers' girlfriend, a jazz singer with several secrets to hide, draws the investigator into the Greenwich Village world of jazz, drugs, and ambivalent sexuality, while his encounters with the Keneallys showcase the glamour and corruption of Park Avenue. Thrown into the midst of it all is a marvelous set piece, in which Withers and the Keneallys attend the classic NFL championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts. Jazz, football, sex, glamour, politics, and murder who could ask for anything more?--Ott, Bill Copyright 2010 Booklist