True Confessions: A Novel [Hardcover]

"True Confessions" wraps a first-rate murder mystery inside a complex family drama that transpires within the genteel power of the Catholic Church. The story is made memorable (and frequently hilarious) by John Gregory Dunne's chuckle-a-page expositions of Irish Catholic foibles. Lt. Tom Spellacy of the LAPD, a semi-corrupt but competent detective, jousts with his partner, his superiors in the department, and his brother, the Rt. Rev. Msr. Desmond Spellacy, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Dunne is to Irish Catholics as Philip Roth is to Eastern European Jews, and "True Confessions" is Dunne's "Goodbye Columbus"--a must-read.

Several previous reviewers have mentioned that they regularly go back and reread this book, and I count myself among them. "True Confessions" is in fact a triumph and John Gregory Dunne's best work. When it is said that a good novel by a "genre" writer "transcends the genre," it usually means that the author has written a novel good enough to be judged apart from that genre. In "True Confessions," John Gregory Dunne writes a book that achieves the status of literature while deliberately staying within the conventions of the detective novel, a much more difficult task indeed.

The plot of "True Confessions," as one previous reviewer noted, is really a MacGuffin for an exploration of the author's more serious concerns. The story revolves around a fictional version of the real-life murder of a woman in the 1940s in Los Angeles, the "Black Dahlia" case. Detective Tom Spellacy catches the case, which through sensational newspaper stories catches the popular imagination, and with it the pressure to solve the case.

Tom sees himself as a failure, a one-time boxer with a glass jaw, now an LAPD detective trapped in a loveless marriage with a wife slowly losing her mind, a kid who never met a candy bar she didn't like, and a guilty conscience not entirely undeserved. His brother Monsignor Desmond "Des" Spellacy, by contrast, is bright, likeable, and ambitious, pious and practical at the same time. He is the handsome war veteran, the "Parachuting Padre," who has set his sights on a Bishop's miter and perhaps a Cardinal's hat. He is charismatic and careful, as he makes his way through the duties of life as a professional Catholic. He woos the faithful on his weekly radio show, and works the owners of auto dealerships and mortuaries on the golf course to increase the building fund of the Archdiocese. He knows that all men sin, and though his conscience is sometimes troubled, he is not above selling indulgences to achieve the greater good.

These very different brothers, who spend their occasional time together shadow-boxing about sin and absolution, corruption and salvation, come into collision with one another as Tom's investigation of the underlying murder increasingly involves Des. Before the story is over, both will make choices of immense consequence for themselves and each other.

Tom's partner is a hard-boiled, wisecracking cop who eats off the cuff at his favorite "cheap Chinese" restaurant, and gets his suits from movie studios after every Sydney Greenstreet movie finishes shooting. He is Tom's, and the reader's, Falstaff, confronting us with his queasy morals, inconvenient truths, and asides about life and the job that make the reader laugh in spite of himself. Dunne also takes a hard, and sometimes hilarious look at the Catholic Church after the war. It is run as a modern American corporation, selling rosaries and salvation as if they were Chevrolets.

The great achievement of "True Confessions" is that Dunne deliberately chooses such a seemingly confining "ring," the pulp genre of detective fiction, within which to present the spiritual and temporal fights which engage the two main characters. He uses every convention of hard-boiled Chandler-esque postwar L.A. detective novels, every stereotype of Irish-American cops, priests, and politicians, and turns them all on their heads to present a tough, unsentimental view about what the country looked like as "The American Century" entered its second half.

In "True Confessions," Dunne manages to sort out facts from fiction, the real from the romanticized, true human conflicts for which there may be no resolution from the satisfying but empty trickery of the last chapter of a whodunit. With a seemingly dead-on and often wickedly funny portrayal of the voices, thoughts, prejudices, shortcuts taken and deals made, by real people in real life, he tells a story of power, ambition, mendacity, failure, occasional tenderness, and maybe even redemption. He turns the stew of pulp fiction into a true cassoulet for his readers.

Strong language, strong everything. This is an adult novel in the best and most serious sense of the word. A "Father Brown" mystery it ain't.

This is a deeply thoughtful novel that is also terrifically funny. It is a wonderful mystery that is also a profound exploration of how power corrupts in the most subtle ways. And it is a great period piece about Los Angeles 50 years ago.

The dialog is superb; the characters are believable; and the struggle for truth and hope come to matter to the reader. And after you've read the book, watch the movie: DeNiro and Duvall give the performances of their lives.