Little Underworld

Thornton dives into the vice and corruption of 1930s Omaha in this undercooked follow-up to Pickard County Atlas. The action opens on private eye Jim Beely drowning child molester Vern Meyer—who assaulted Beely’s 15-year-old daughter—in a river. Beely then takes Meyer’s body to the crematorium to be burned, where he runs into Frank Tvrdik, a crooked cop who offers to look the other way if Beely agrees to help take down Elmer Kobb, a candidate for Omaha commissioner with plans to seize control of the city’s liquor-soaked underworld. With no real choice, Beely joins Tvrdik, and the two embark on a gritty, violent trek through Omaha’s seediest locales, eventually getting tangled up in a second murder. Thornton laces the hardboiled narrative with welcome flashes of dark humor, but her tale is short on atmosphere, forgoing scene setting in favor of excessive dialogue that hinders immersion. This falls short of Thornton’s promising debut. Agent: Emily Forland, Brandt & Hochman. (Mar.)