The Listener

by Robert McCammon
332 pgs

Robert McCammon's latest book The Listener takes place in New Orleans in 1934. John "Pearly" Partner and Ginger LaFrance are both lifetime con artists who, separately, have been running their own cons for many years. They arrive in a town or city, scam a modest amount of money out of as many locals as they can, and then move on to the next place on the map. When they both end up in New Orleans at the same time and recognize each other for what they are, they decide to work together on a scheme far more dangerous than anything either of them has done before, with the potential for a huge payoff.

Taking inspiration from the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby boy a couple years earlier, they decide to kidnap the two children of one of the wealthiest business men in the city and ransom them for $100,000 each.

Curtis Mayhew is a young black man who works as a red cap baggage handler at the New Orleans train station. Curtis has a special gift that only his widowed mother knows he possesses: he can communicate with others who share his same gift in his mind. When he "listens" he can connect with someone who is broadcasting his or her thoughts to him and they can carry on a conversation telepathically.

For the past little while he has been periodically communicating with a young girl who has recently discovered her own gift and is trying to understand it. He doesn't know who she is or where she lives until one day when she reaches out to him panicked and tells him she and her brother were just kidnapped.

What unfolds is a fantastic genre-bending story told by an author in the prime of his career. Every time I've reviewed one of McCammon's books, I'm sure I've said he's one of my favorite authors writing today, and The Listener is a great example of why. His stories are captivating, his characters are well written (Curtis is one of his best), and while I'm never happy to get to the end of one of his books, I'm always happy about the way it ends.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆