Misery Bay: The Alex McKnight Series, Book 8

As a former Yooper, I even enjoyed the listing of towns they drove through. Wish they had gone even further west in UP!

Hamilton never lets me down!

I started reading Steve Hamilton's Alex McKnight series about three weeks ago. Having lived in the Upper Peninsula in the 60's, I have a distant memory of what life was like in this cold, snowy part of our country. I heard about the Alex McKnight books from a reunion site and thought I would read one book. I started with "A Cold Day in Paradise" and downloaded each one in the series immediately after finishing each one. I recommend you read them in order, not because you can't enjoy each novel on its own, but because you watch the relationships between the characters grow. Some very interesting people, Leon, Jackie, Vinnie, Natalie, and Chief Maven. You come to know them, can picture them in your mind. Alex has meals daily at the Glasgow Inn, he drinks Molson Canadian and eats Beef Stew. Call it suggestion, but I now have Molson in my refrigerator and it really is quite smooth. But I digress. In the first seven novels, Alex and Chief Maven are at odds and the relationship is hostile. In this book, they work together to solve the "unrelated crimes" despite interference and roadblocks put up by the bumbling FBI agents. Alex does put everything together and finds the villain but almost loses his life. The reason for the revenge is weak compared to the violence of the crimes. Concept is good but the believability factor is strained. My main complaint is so much time is spent traveling in the car by day and night and Alex keeps walking into scenes that no rational person would enter without backup. I look forward to Book #9 but I hope it is concentrated in the Soo or Paradise and we have more character development with Vinnie and Janet and their interactions with Alex. Overall I give the series 5 stars and recommend them.

Steve Hamilton may be one of the best crime/mystery writers in the literary world today. After his spectacular book The Lock Artist, Hamilton returns to the town of Paradise in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and his series of books featuring baseball player-turned-cop-turned-sometime-private investigator Alex McKnight. And it's truly like the return of an old friend, as Hamilton hooked me within the first few pages and kept me racing breathlessly until the book's conclusion.One cold night, a college student hangs himself from a tree in the middle of a snowy, deserted field. He didn't leave a note, but suicides often don't. The boy's father, a federal marshal and an old friend of Alex McKnight's favorite nemesis, Police Chief Roy Maven, asks Alex to look into his son's suicide and try and find out why he might have chosen to end his life. But what appears to be a simple investigation uncovers a pattern of crimes more affecting and sinister than anyone ever expected, and Alex and Chief Maven find themselves thrown together, trying to find and stop a cold-blooded killer, all while Alex tries to put the demons of his past behind him.Steve Hamilton knows how to tell a story amazingly well. It's a testament to his skill that he can make the eighth book in a series featuring many of the same characters feel as fresh as the first. The pacing is razor-sharp, the action is first-rate, and even as you think you've gotten the whole mystery figured out, he still has some tricks up his sleeve. If you've never read any of Hamilton's books, you don't know what you're missing--so remedy that right away! Can't wait to see what he comes up with next...

I continue to like Alex McKnight as a character, and I continue to enjoy the Upper Peninsula setting of this series. In this book, Alex's nemesis, Chief Roy Maven, actually walks into the Glasgow Inn (Alex's hangout) and asks for Alex's help. Throughout the book, the growing bond between Alex and Maven worked very well. In fact, it's one of the things I liked best about the book. Maven wants Alex to look into the suicide of a teen college student, the son of a man Maven rode with during his state trooper days. The plot is that somebody is murdering the children of law officers and making it look like suicide. And then, after the parents have suffered for weeks, thinking their child committed suicide, the murderer kills the father, too. (In each case, the parent who was the law officer is a man.)The Feds, it seems, don't quite grasp this, and so Alex and Maven do sleuthing on their own, looking for evil. And this is where the book feels forced. First, that the Feds don't see what's happening. Second, the whole "evil" emphasis seems tacked on to the book. We are told over and over how evil the killer is. But being told becomes boring. And, in fact, we don't need to be told over and over. We can see for ourselves the horrible damage the fake suicides cause. Third, I don't know about you, but I prefer mysteries in which the killer is actually present as a character here and there throughout the novel. In this case, the killer is present only fleetingly, and I find that dissatisfying. And four, the single page italicized "thoughts" of the killer scattered throughout the book just don't work. They are forced, put there to maybe make us see that the killer is crazy. They simply aren't interesting.What is interesting are the main characters and the setting. If you're a character- and setting-driven reader, you'll love this book. If you're a plot-driven reader, you might become impatient.

I don't normally start in the middle of a series of books but this had good end of year reviews and I got it cheap. The premise is that a young man has committed suicide in the middle of winter at a place called Misery Bay, miles from anywhere and deep in snow. His father can't cope with not knowing why and so enlists the help of his friend in the local police who then calls in Alex McKnight, a PI with a history. The father is then killed and so begins a pattern of 'suicides' of the children of a number of policemen followed by their murders. McKnight looks for the link.So far, so routine. In fact this is a routine and predictable story, I had worked out the identity of the killer by about halfway but needed the ends tying up. It's a perfectly enjoyable book, easy to read and exciting enough to grip but is not going to change the world.The one thing that lifts this book above the ordinary is the sense of place. The Great Lakes area is unfamiliar and the writing about the people of this area and the way they cope with the harsh weather is excellent.

I am surprised Hamilton is not better known. He writes beautifully and his characters are 3 dimensional and sympathetic. His stories are original in a very crowded genre. I love the sense of place, few of us have visited this area and I don't think the tourist board will thank him but it is fascinated to be transported to the Great Lakes. In my view this is one of his best.

After several McKnight books I really feel that I know the characters and the area that McKnight and his acquaintances live in. Again Hamiton has painted has painted a vivid picture of life in snow bound Michigan. .The plot was woven in such a way that for some time I was kept guessing. Mavern's softer side was exposed.

Reasonably involving. Felt a little reminiscent of others one has read. However, there was a sense of place which was quite well evoked. A fairly good read with a good crescendo.

Well up to standard. I enjoy reading about the usual tight knit group of characters and this situation was of special interest. Roll on the next book.