"Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed" by Marc Blatte (Schaffner Press)

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Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed
Marc Blatte
275 pp. Schaffner Press. $24.95
Pub. Date: 3/1/2009
ISBN-13: 978-0980139419

Reviewed by Paul Stotts

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The Big City. New York City. Center of the universe.

Over there’s the Empire State Building, tourists huddling around, gazing skyward, mouths agape. Just around the corner—Times Square, a living, breathing television commercial; big brassy theater marquees grinning overhead. Hungry? Hop on the subway, grab yourself a coal oven-fired Margherita pie at Grimaldi’s under the Brooklyn Bridge. Or maybe a Major Munch Alpine mac’ and cheese at S’Mac on East 12^th. Pure heaven in a bowl.

And over there, in the shadows, in the dark underbelly of the city, in a parking lot adjoining one of New York’s trendiest nightclubs, the hip-hop music pulsating, bumping, a line of eager partygoers stretching around the block, laughing, waiting—over there is a body. Dead as the Roman Empire. A gunshot victim: male, Eastern European, big as Godzilla if Godzilla lifted weights, one of the club’s bouncers, working the door nightly with his equally gargantuan cousin, keeping out the tweakers and the nobodies. The spoiled brats and the drama queens. The crews and the posers. Then Death reached the front of the queue, punched ticket in hand. And wouldn’t be denied, wouldn’t be held back behind a red velvet rope. American bullets finally cutting one immigrant’s American Dream short. Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Because America has a bullet with their name on it.

Cue the Law and Order theme; we got ourselves a mystery—New York, New York style. Because if you can murder here, you can murder anyway. A head-scratching homicide who-dunnit—one that could only happen in America. One with a list of suspects nearly as big as the city itself. Because in America, Humpty Dumpty didn’t fall. No way, man—Humpty Dumpty was pushed.

And it takes a special type of man, a special type of detective to uncover the truth, to find out who shoved our jolly little egg. To find out who’s on the handle end of this skillet of scrambled eggs. A man like Salvatore Messina, one of New York’s most decorated detectives, also known on the streets as “Black Sallie Blue Eyes.” Coal black hair with a disposition to match, hard and unbending. A rock. Riveting blue eyes able to penetrate a man’s soul, reading him, knowing the answers before the questions are even asked. A man who can wade through the filth of the city, plucking out the piece of refuse responsible. A man whose life’s about to change. Forever.

Mysteries are often redundant, formulaic. Read enough and police procedure becomes second nature, investigation feels like old hat. What often sets mystery novels apart is the setting, the world in which the detectives suddenly find themselves investigating. A world sometimes foreign and unknown. Maybe it’s a snotty upper class slice of society, elitist and condescending. Or the poor and downtrodden immigrant classes, society’s bottom rung, the perpetual victims. Not often do our police surrogates find themselves in the inner circle of the hip-hop music world, in the studios, in the marketing meetings, in the cut-throat dealings. In his entertaining debut novel Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed, Marc Blatte gives us a guided tour of the hip-hop culture. Of those who live it, of those who market it, and of those who consume it. And it feels fresh, new, and exciting. Like Columbus wiggling his toes in the soft, squishy sand of the New World. A new day, a new dawn.

Blatte displays a flair for writing convincing character psychology. For writing characters that don’t just act real, but think real. Making them feel real. It’s a strength of the novel, and it gets the reader invested, engaged—less emotionally—more through curiosity, like roaming through a freak show, gawking at the human accidents. There’s the Bearded Lady, next to Reptile Boy, across from the Human Pretzel. And Blatte definitely piles up the freak quotient; events becoming exponentially weirder as the novel progresses.

The novel doesn’t feel gritty, though; it shows us the filth sliming the walls, coagulating in the gaps between floorboards, befouling the air. But it doesn’t wallow in it. It doesn’t stick your nose down in it, whacking your bottom with a newspaper, screaming “Bad Dog.” It’s a journey through the circles of hell wearing an Asbestos suit. Protective. A slight feeling of safety. Showing some restraint.

When I tackle a new mystery novel, I want something different. I want a backstage pass to someplace I haven’t been before. Humpty Dumpty Was Pushed is the cool roadie, the one that lets you backstage, lets you into the party. A party not filled with people, but with Characters. Capital C-type characters. Like the crazy grandpa everyone refers to “as quite the character.” Larger-than-life people in which the word captivating understates their magnetic personalities. It’s enjoyable, fun. And a promising start for a new writer.

Final Grade: 79 out of 100

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