As the cover states, The Amboy Dukes is "Irving Shulman's great novel of teen-age crime." Shulman's writing style is pretty good, better than the pulp style one would expect from this book but not far removed. The story itself is the typical young hoodlum gets his just desserts in the end sort of thing. My enjoyment was limited by the fact that I could find no sympathy for any of the characters with the exception of Alice Abbot and Stan Andrews. Perhaps that means a job well done for Shulman, depending on his intent.My interest in this book stems from the fact that The Amboy Dukes was Ted Nugent's band in the 60's. A little research online reveals that The Amboy Dukes may or may not have been a real New York gang. What's interesting about them in this book is that these young toughs wear suits and hats, which stands to reason given that this book was written in the 40's.At one point, one of the detectives makes a comment about how the kids keep getting worse, which I think is interesting. For about two hundred years, that's the same thing they've been saying about youth gangs in America. We know there were gangs in the 1800's and surely they existed before then. I guess that statement rings false to me. It's like saying crime's gone up when, really, it's the population that has increased while crime stays more or less the same, proportionately.Not a bad read but not exactly an inspiring read, either.
My Dad gave me this book when I was a teenager, his way of cluing me in on his teenage years without having to actually talk about it! I found it successful in what I felt it was trying to do which was in the nature of an expose, this is what is happening, the kids you are riding on the bus with? this is what they are doing. Beyond that the book succeeded also in getting the reader to identify with some of the characters and how difficult but not impossible it was for them to choose different lives.
