Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

I heard about this book on an NPR Fresh Air podcast with Terry Gross. She interviewed the author, Jack Clark, who I assume is not the former baseball player. Rather, he’s a writer who turned to driving a cab for some cash and for some story ideas. Originally, he self-published this first novel in 1996 and sold it to his fares. Later, it got picked up by a real publisher. Chicago is his venue, and I don’t remember reading a book about Chicago since reading a couple by Sara Paretsky (and I have another one by her in my list of books to read) and Eric Larson (“The Devil in the White City” – very good book). Clark writes about the life of a cabby and he includes a number of characters that actually begged to be further developed. Clark’s warning – don’t go near the projects, especially Cabrini-Green. During this same time, someone is knocking off random cab drivers, and then Polack Lenny, the dean of cabbies, is killed. The Polack was the most careful of drivers in terms of his fares, so no one can understand how he could have been a victim. I thought the take on cab drivers was good enough, but Clark did put in this murder mystery to help the story. His main character is Eddie Miles, nice name for a cab driver, and Eddie eventually encounters the serial killer. Clearly, this is an autobiographical piece, and it was a fun and quick read, about right for a flight from JFK to Logan.