Kevin Wade, veteran screenwriter and showrunner of the highly praised and habitually watched TV Blue Bloods, has put his writing chops to a crime thriller. Set on Long Island’s Gold Coast, Johnny Careless has all the police work, family drama, and personal struggles of a Sunday dinner with the Regans. Storytelling at its best.
Nicknamed by his high school lacrosse coach, Johnny “couldn’t care less, the wake he leaves just walking around. He’s from a different tribe than you and me, different customs, different standards…”
Turns out, there’s more than self-interest to John “Johnny” Payson Chambliss, the heir apparent to old-moneyed and quietly arrogant Pete Chambliss. But it takes more than a village to uncover his humane side after what’s left of him washes up on a Bayville beach.
“[He’s] In his skivvies, so probably a night swim and looks like a boat or a Jet Ski hit him square in the kisser,” an EMT on the scene observes.
The mayors and local poohbahs would have the public believe Johnny’s death was an accident. But to his boyhood friend and newly minted Police Chief, Jeep Mullane, the “scratches on his back and shoulder told a different story”—a story that the men in suits are not keen on releasing. They’d rather the captain solve the spate of high-end auto thefts along the coast.
Using Google Earth and Zillow, a gang of Chilean teens is running fast and loose with every Lamborghini they can hotwire from a driveway and transport out of the country. Park a Mercedes or a Bentley in a tony mall or restaurant on “Long Guy Land,” and it’s hasta la vista, baby. A subplot that builds, bit by bit, to a surprise reveal at the end of the book.
Back in his middle-class childhood home, a few towns over from Bayville—no herringbone floors and copper gutters here; his dad was a cop, after all—Jeep still feels the outsider sting he had felt as a teen when he signs in at the restricted Two Trees Club to get a leg up on the case.
“You’re from here, yeah. But you’re always gonna be signing the guest book, you’re never gonna be a member,” he’s told. A resident of the North Shore for the past 23 years, Wade knows firsthand the divide between working-class “wannabes from Hicksville and Mineola and boisterous jocks from Chaminade and St. Anthony’s.”
There was no such divide between Jeep and his treasured friend when they bonded as lacrosse teammates, though Johnny’s in-your-face privileged attitude put Jeep off.
Now, he tries to balance his grief with his professional life, while up against cronyism and small-town corruption. Frustrated, he calls in a favor, however sketchy the source.
“Trust the wrong guy, you’re screwed that once. But trust nobody, you’re screwed for good.”
A different kind of screwing comes to Jeep when he thinks about Johnny’s beautiful and hard-to-know ex-wife, Niven. For nights now, she’s been showing up at his house unannounced, playing it coy when questioned. Does she know something she’s not telling, or does she have a thing for him? Back in the day, they all palled around.
The case unfolds over a week, but the story spans 20 years. Wade deftly swings between past and present in larger-than-smaller increments until key moments in Jeep and Johnny’s past weave neatly into real time.
Flashback chapters include Jeep’s love affair with a photographer’s model, which tragically involved her stalker boyfriend, and ultimately sent him back to his hometown. Another memory brings the mysterious Catalina Soto who swanned into a Jericho diner “…all the way from Chile to the North Shore of Long Island just to see Johnny.” That was the first and last time she was seen or heard from.
The plot intensifies when a burner phone and call log are discovered, and Jeep learns that a young Hispanic male is searching for him. His shock is palpable when he comes face-to-face with Juan.
“…time collapsed for a moment as Jeep was reunited with Johnny at age eighteen. Well, Johnny with a deep tan and wearing a suit the real Johnny wouldn’t be caught dead in, but still. His “slicked back hair showing the hereditary Chambliss widow’s peak hairline, and the smile…” brings readers to a neat twist as the story nears its end.
All stories end, you know. But maybe not entirely. There’s more to come from crime-busting Chief, Jeep Mullane. According to a YouTube interview, Kevin Wade is working on a sequel.
