Misery Bay

Starred review from April 4, 2011
In Hamilton's superb eighth suspense novel featuring PI Alex McKnight (after A Stolen Season), McKnight looks into the murders of three young people, all made to look like suicides. McKnight, a retired Detroit cop who lives quietly in rural Paradise, Mich., receives an unexpected visit from Sault Ste. Marie police chief Roy Maven, his professional nemesis. Maven thinks McKnight can help a friend, U.S. marshal Charles "Raz" Razniewski, the father of the first "suicide" victim, a college student found hanging from a tree near Misery Bay one cold winter night. When Raz turns up murdered, McKnight and Maven partner to solve the multiple crimes. After the murders of the fathers of the other victims, FBI agent Janet Long joins the case. The stark frozen landscape of Lake Superior is beautifully drawn as are the characters of McKnight and Maven, who develop an unlikely bond. Assured prose, a thrilling plot, and a surprising, satisfying conclusion make this a winner. Author tour.

June 1, 2011

After six years of hiatus, Hamilton returns ex-cop Alex McKnight to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, land that he loves, and sets him against a psychopathic killer who thinks he's Alfred Hitchcock.

With the freezing wind blowing off Lake Superior—never mind that it's officially spring—Michigan's UP might not be the first place most would think of as paradise. Unless, like Alex McKnight, you actually live in Paradise, a small, frost-bitten town abutting the Canadian border, and would never willingly live anywhere else. So there's Alex, unfazed by a typically bitter UP night, enjoying a functioning fireplace, his signature Molson ale and similar life-affirming comforts when the door to the Glasgow Inn opens to a man with whom he shares a mutual hatred. Well, perhaps a shade less than that. "Just call it a persistent lack of liking each other," explains Roy Maven to Jackie Connery, owner of the Glasgow. All Alex's previous encounters with hard-eyed, congenitally irascible Maven, chief of police in nearby Sault Ste. Marie, have been unpleasant to say the least, yet here he is asking for a favor, and a strange one at that. A friend has suffered a terrible loss. His college student son has inexplicably taken his own life, and the grieving father is desperate for answers. Will Alex forget past grudges, dust off his infrequently used but still valid P.I. license, visit Michigan Tech and ask the kids some pertinent questions? Of course he will—Alex McKnight–errant is programmed for that sort of thing. Predictably, the suicide turns out to be a murder, while the killer involved turns out to be a bizarre kind of filmmaker in whose eerie epic Alex comes within an eyelash of playing a death scene.

Too soft in the middle to be among the best in this estimable series; still, Hamilton (The Lock Artist, 2010, etc.) has a great time with the love-hate relationship between two alpha males.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 1, 2011
The rawness of Michigans Upper Peninsula serves as a perfect backdrop for Hamiltons hard-boiled, flannel-shirt series starring ex-Detroit cop Alex McKnight, who is now the owner of a cabin resort and a reluctant sleuth. McKnight narrates his cases, giving readers both an immediate feel for the action and a voice that exudes intelligence and battle-weariness. This time an old, old battle, in the person of Alexs former, detested boss, Police Chief Roy Maven, walks into Alexs favored bar on a cold-beyond-cold winter night.The son of Mavens longtime friend has been found hanged from a tree overlooking Misery Bay on Lake Superior. Maven drags Alex into asking around to satisfy the grieving fathers yearning for some sort of certainty. The trail begins with only three contacts but quickly expands when more deaths are discovered. Hamiltons latest is an extremely well crafted puzzle, a chilling suspense story, and a compelling examination of evil.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)