‘Hot Springs’ Targets Mob Violence

Though Stephen Hunter’s new novel, “Hot Springs” (Simon & Schuster, $25, 479 pages), revolves around a factual event--in 1946, a group of returning WWII vets led by a prosecuting district attorney, ran the Mob out of that Arkansas resort town--he notes that his version is “grossly fictionalized . . . (I) write stories, not histories, and whenever stuck between the cool plot twist and the record, will choose the former.” No complaints here.

Hunter is a consummate yarn-spinner whose eye for detail and ear for nuance, not to mention a talent for characters who all but leap off the page, create their own riveting brand of reality. Three of his popular novels, “Point of Impact,” “Black Light” and “Time to Hunt,” have been about Bob Lee Swagger, a darkly heroic Vietnam War vet. He is present in “Hot Springs” too, but mainly in a prenatal state.

The focus here is on his father, Earl, just back from WWII, with a Medal of Honor that does little more than remind him of his fallen comrades. Having escaped death in battle, he now seems to fluctuate between a belief in his own immortality and an indifference to whatever the fates have in store. In spite of his love for his adoring, pregnant wife, he leaves her for a job as the arms instructor of a group of eager young lawmen who hope to clean up gang-infested Hot Springs.

Their target is Bubbletown boss Owney Maddox, a tough don to dislodge. There was a real gangster named Owney Madden, a native of Liverpool, England, who eventually settled down in Hot Springs. Hunter’s Owney isn’t really British, merely affected, and at times of tension drops his Mayfair accent in favor of a more authoritative Hell’s Kitchen argot. There are numerous other instances throughout this thoroughly captivating novel that justify the author’s preference for fiction over fact but one of the best occurs early on. Swagger is quietly observing Bugsy Siegel and his girlfriend Virginia Hill at the Hot Springs train station when she suddenly asks the lawman to light her cigarette. The insanely jealous Siegel begins to berate the big man. Infuriated by Swagger’s air of indifference, the gangster brags, “I killed 17 men. How many you killed, you pitiful farmer?” “Ah, I’d say somewhere between 300 and 350,” the war hero replies. “And see, here’s the funny thing, the boys I killed, they were trying to kill me. They had machine guns and tanks and rifles. The boys you killed was sitting in the park or on the back seat of a car, thinking about the ball game.”

Siegel throws a punch and Swagger dodges it, hitting the gangster “squarely below the heart, actually cracking three ribs.” As Siegel drops to the platform, throwing up, Swagger tells him, “I only hit you half as hard as I know how. . . . Now you get on this train and you go far, far away. Don’t come back, no more, no how, not ever.”

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The Times reviews mysteries every other week. Next week: Rochelle O’ Gorman on audio books.