Review: When A Rook Takes The Queen by Edward Izzi

When A Rook Takes The Queen by Edward Izzi is an intense urban thriller, taking its name from the Chicago Gambit, an opening used in chess that is widely thought of as a daring way to open the board for the game. The seamy streets of Chicago are the setting here, and the author weaves a set of similar moves into the story with his characters, creating an intriguing assassination puzzle for the reader to unravel.

When a Chicago Tribune reporter, the stubborn Larry McKay, investigates the murder of the city’s mayor, an African-America woman who had been seeking a peaceful solution to the city’s violence, a former chess champion turned priest comes into focus, leaving a trail into the underbelly of Catholic organized crime centered around the Church and a weekly chess game.

The Black Lives Matter movement and police violence resound throughout the story, giving it a current and pertinent urgency, but the “cast of thousands” takes some of the potency out, as there’s little time to relate to the characters before a new one is introduced. This is somewhat the nature of an investigative thriller, so one gets used to the dizzying introductions, and it is countered well by the rounded dog-with-a-bone investigation style of McKay, who impresses with his methods, and faces danger continuously, increasing the stakes throughout.

The city of Chicago comes to life here in vivid detail, and anyone who doesn’t know the place will feel like part of the city. Although there is not a lot of description given over of the city in particular, the touches of prose and explanations of the ongoing political debacles describe succinctly how it is to live there, with the flurry of the city’s newsroom and the conflicts among different communities. Apart from the suspenseful plot itself, the tensions within the city are palpable. The effect is something of a Grisham novel mixed with the edges of Scorsese – the machinations of law mixed with looming bouts of violence.

At over 450 pages, however, the book is a bit of an ask for any reader, and the writing could really do with an edit down to a more digestible word count. There is much redundancy in dialogue and description, and several sentences could be cut at a swoop to give scenes more power. Instead, readers may find they have to dig for the good stuff – there’s a great novel in here, but a fair amount of superfluous prose and dialogue as well. There are also a few elements that take away somewhat from the story, such as the somewhat unnecessary romantic thread, and the jarring vernacular of some of the characters. Although profanity would absolutely be part of any newsroom or gang, it loses potency fast in written form.

That aside, When A Rook Takes The Queen crackles with a slick, original hook that should win fans for the protagonist McKay, should he show up in additional books. Izzi has created a uniquely strong lead character in this highly original and impressively-woven twister of a story.