THE DISTANCE by Eddie Muller

Finished Tu 6/18/13 (I began this book on the flight back from Phoenix on The Pineaire Cleanup with Janny and Joe)

My post at Good Reads-

Although the novel contains elements of a whodunit, thriller, and murder mystery, it's more than that, and delivers a truly bewitching and noirishly atmospheric 'total immersion' into the world of boxing and journalism of late 1940's San Francisco. The author masterfully creates a demimonde in which the forces of politics, crime, and The Fourth Estate interact in an elaborate and sinister gavotte. 
The book begins at the scene of a murder and introduces an elaborately plotted storyline which eventually provides the reason for this crime, yet it's really just an opportunity to develop a most unusual and ultimately tragic love story. Because the action is set in the sordid world of boxing and shows how a tainted journalist covers the action and orchestrates the outcome, it allows the author to present some finely detailed characters who are not really full-fledged gangsters or corrupt athletes, yet are far from upstanding or morally upright citizens.
In a way, Eddie Muller, the writer, is really recounting the fictionalized biography of his father who was actually a well known San Francisco boxing journalist from the 1930's to the 70's, so the book really has the ring of truth. The book is very well written, and compares very well to anything by Dashiell Hammett. This is an amazing first book!

Notes-
Billy Nichols (Nicholovich) is 'Mr. Boxing',  local newspaper fight reporter. The novel is set in San Francisco-1948. Billy is drawn into the  murder of Gig Liardi who was the fight manager of Hack Escalante.
Billy falls in love with Claire Escalante who was forced into a blackmail scheme to tarnish local crime boss Eddie Ryan.  Eddie is a crooked fight promoter, and his brother, Jimmy, is a loan shark.
Claire becomes pregnant by Billy and she is murdered because she stole Eddie's blackmail info from an old acquaintance of Billy's, Burnell Sanders. This guy is the one who started all the mayhem, and he's a short little thug that Billy had known since childhood. He wanted to be a 'player' at any cost.
Francis O'Connor is a homicide detective that suspects Billy and Hack were connected to the killings in some way.
The novel opens when Billy goes to Hacks aid and buries the body of Gig in Golden Gate Park. Hack admits that he did it, but it was an accident. Gig called his wife a whore, and, of course, she was.
This is really a very fine first novel.