What the Dead Leave Behind

April 10, 2017
Unlicensed PI Rushmore “Mac” McKenzie tackles perhaps his most complex case yet in Edgar-winner Housewright’s witty 14th Minnesota-based mystery (after 2016’s Stealing the Countess). Mac should have known from the outset that this was going to be a challenge. First, it’s a cold case—the stabbing murder of Frank Harris, who worked for human resources in a large furniture company, in a Minneapolis suburb a year earlier. Next, the person bringing it to Mac—the victim’s college-age son, Malcolm—is beside himself with rage and grief. Frank’s widow says she’s comfortable with her husband’s murder remaining unsolved, but Malcolm needs closure and he needs it now. Once Mac begins to investigate, he finds little the local police missed. Once he starts asking questions, however, the intrepid former cop learns of another unsolved murder that’s possibly related. But can he unearth the connection? Housewright is such a pro at plot and character development that it’s nearly impossible to put this entry down. Agent: Alison Picard, Alison J. Picard Agency.

April 1, 2017
Rushmore McKenzie, who isn't a cop any more, and isn't a licensed investigator either, nonetheless agrees to take his 14th case for a friend of his lover's daughter and finds himself digging up felonies past and present.Malcolm Harris doesn't want anybody to go to jail for his father's murder a year ago; he just wants to know the truth about what happened. So McKenzie, who's a pushover for his girlfriend Nina Truhler's daughter, Erica, promises to ask questions about Frank Harris, who was stabbed in the head and dumped in New Brighton's Long Lake Regional Park, which might have seemed to be comfortably outside Minnesota's Twin Cities. Assessing the suspects, Detective Clark Downing assures McKenzie, "Jayne didn't stab him, but I know she had it done." Unfortunately, the widow can produce no less than 14 alibi witnesses, members of the New Brighton Hotdish group who were dining with her while her husband was getting killed. McKenzie, not one to take his marching orders from the local police (Stealing the Countess, 2016, etc.), soon links the Harris killing to two earlier murders, and one of them, the shooting two years ago of cosmetics heir Jonathan Szereto Jr., encourages him to look a lot more closely at the Szereto Corporation, where Harris worked as director of Human Relations. It turns out that the corporation, and its late president in particular, has been relating to its employees less than humanely, and it's a distinct pleasure to follow McKenzie as he uncovers layer upon layer of corporate corruption, from sexual harassment to industrial espionage, while every second woman in the cast comes on to him. The hero emerges with his virtue intact and a brace of new heads for his trophy wall. The surprising number of malefactors at the company isn't a strength of the tale, but they're all well worth your cathartic scorn.

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May 1, 2017

Last seen in Stealing the Countess, Rushmore (Mac) McKenzie, reluctant millionaire and occasional investigator, has a bad feeling when his stepdaughter asks him to look into the unsolved murder of a college friend's father. Fans of Steve Hamilton and William Kent Krueger should be right at home with Mac. [Library marketing.]--ACT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2017
Housewright fans, rejoice: the latest Rushmore McKenzie novel is here. The unlicensed PI (he used to be a cop until he quit so he could collect a big reward on a criminal he apprehended) is looking into the death of a man who was stabbed in the head about a year ago. The victimfollow along carefully nowwas the father of Rushmore's girlfriend's daughter's friend. Hospital records suggest the victim's widow had been physically abused, but she claims, persuasively, that she didn't murder the man. So who did, and why? Is Rushmore putting his own family at risk by digging into the man's death? The McKenzie novels are solidly plotted mysteries with, overall, a rather light tonenot comic mysteries, by any means, but a long way from noir. Housewright is one of those writers whose name on the cover guarantees readers a good time, and he definitely doesn't disappoint this time.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)