Review by Booklist Review
The title fits both the Upper Peninsula setting of this mystery and its hero's emotional state. Alex McKnight is about to turn 49 and feels that he doesn't have much to show for it: only a busted marriage, a failed career in minor-league baseball, a stint as a Detroit cop that ended with his partner dead, and his current gigs as caretaker of resort cabins and sometime sleuth. Yet McKnight escapes being a bitter, emotionally stunted private eye through his humorous self-assessment. He tries to end his self-exile by attending a poker game at a rich guy's home. Wrong move. The game is busted up by masked gunmen who make off with the contents of the rich guy's safe. As McKnight hunts down the gunmen, he discovers that the tiny town of Paradise, Michigan, festers with corrupt and dangerous secrets. This fourth McKnight mystery is a bracing, sometimes sidesplitting alternative detective novel. --Connie Fletcher
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
No longer a cop, inactive as a private eye, classic loner Alex McKnight has retreated to his lakeside cabin in this superb yarn, Edgar-winner Hamilton's fourth after 2001's The Hunting Wind. In fact, Alex has become so much a recluse in the little town of Paradise in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that his few friends are worried about him. That leads Jackie Connery, the Scottish-raised proprietor of the bar where Alex sometimes hangs out, to badger him into joining a friendly power game at the home of Win Vargas. Before Alex can even work up a good dislike of the blustery, wealth-flaunting Vargas, three armed men interrupt the poker game. While Alex, Jackie and the other players are held at gunpoint, their host is led off to open a safe and his treasured collection of artifacts in trashed or stolen. From that quick beginning, events move swiftly and strangely. Alex finds Vargas's suspicions centering on him; the police, let my old enemy Chief Roy Maven, think Jack and the other players were in on the robbery. And Alex's ex-partner, PI Leon Prudell, turns out to have yet another take on who's behind the robbery. Hamilton keeps the action fast and furious and manages to keep the read off balance almost as much as his hero. As usual, Alex takes more than his share of lumps as he rediscovers the importance of friendship, loyalty and courage. While Alex McKnight would probably hate the idea, mysteries this good may make him extremely popular. Agent, Jane Chelius. (May 13) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Alex McKnight owns a small group of rustic cottages on the north edge of Michigan near Lake Superior. His retreat from society is interrupted by well-meaning friend Jackie, who forces him out of his hideaway for an evening of poker. When the game is interrupted by a well-planned burglary and Jackie is arrested for it, Alex is determined to clear him. The tangle proves more complex and dangerous than Alex had expected, but he stubbornly looks for answers. Nick Sullivan has narrated all four of Hamilton's mysteries featuring Alex, and he is clearly in sync with the material. He reads with an intensity that portrays Alex's single-minded concentration on whatever task confronts him, yet he can slow his pace to allow the listener to enjoy the wry humor laced throughout much of the story. Sullivan's deep voice is suited to the hard-boiled detective genre; his interpretation of the disillusioned ex-cop and his colorful acquaintances includes gruff voices; Midwestern, Canadian and Scottish accents; and attentive pacing. Recommended for mystery collections.-Juleigh Muirhead Clark, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Lib., Colonial Williamsburg Fdn., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Though all Michigan's Upper Peninsula is basking in rare balmy sunlight, it's the summer of Alex McKnight's discontent. Now that he's about to turn 50 without much to show for his half-century, the ex-minor-league catcher, ex-cop, ex-private cop, ex-husband, and current owner of six unprepossessing hunting and fishing cabins has turned hermit. And that worries his best friend Jackie Connery, proprietor of the Glasgow Inn, where Alex has not been dropping in for his customary tipple. Invading Alex's lair, Jackie all but kidnaps him for a friendly poker game at fat cat Win Vargas's swanky home. It turns out, however, that there's a lot more in the cards for all concerned than straights, flushes, and male bonding. Three gun-toting hard guys crash the party and break open the bedroom safe, departing with $700,000 of Vargas's money. A bad night is followed by a nightmarish day when Jackie and two other players, all Alex's close friends, are arrested by lunkheaded Chief of Police Roy Maven. The robbery was a conspiracy, the chief asserts; Alex's pals were in on it; and stuff stolen from Vargas has turned up in possession of all three. Certain his friends have been framed, Alex goes into overdrive trying to keep them out of jail. But then slowly, unsettlingly, he realizes that there's a definite hangdog look about them he doesn't associate with innocent men. Hamilton (The Hunting Wind, 2001, etc.) spins a brisk, well-plotted tale brightened by his usual deft way with local color.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
