Misery Bay

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After a brief hiatus, Steve Hamilton returned to his Alex McKnight series in 2011 with this entry. Alex remains an ex-ballplayer, ex-cop, ex-PI… But wait a minute! As it turns out, he didn't actually let his private eye license expire. And so…

He's still morose, understandably so, about the events in the previous book. (He's usually morose, this just adds on.) But his sometime-nemesis, Police Chief Roy Maven, asks for a favor: would Alex please investigate the suicide of the son of Maven's friend and ex-partner from the Michigan State Police? It happened up in (see title) Misery Bay an actual place in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Which might be nice in mid-summer, or what passes for summer in the UP, but this is in the bleak midwinter, and it's cold, lonely, and … well, bleak.

Alex finds out some stuff, but things seem off. He can't put his finger on it. But when he returns to report back his findings, he discovers a grisly murder. Coincidence? I think not. And there's more on the way.

A good page-turner. Alex remains morose throughout, and (eventually) finds himself in deadly peril, but he does meet an attractive lady FBI agent. I'm betting she'll return in the next book. Which is on the way from Amazon.

Consumer note: I don't think the scene depicted on the cover has any counterpart in the book.


Last Modified 2024-01-24 6:12 AM EDT