Cold Storage, Alaska

December 2, 2013
At the start of Straley’s offbeat prequel to 2008’s The Big Both Ways, Clive McCahon (aka the “Milkman”) is released from Washington’s McNeil Island Penitentiary and heads for his hometown of Cold Storage, Alaska, after serving seven years of a 10-year sentence for drug dealing, but his problems are far from over. Aspiring Hollywood screenwriter Jake Shoemaker, his violent partner in crime, wants the large sum that Clive has squirreled away, and Jake won’t take no for an answer; Miles, Clive’s straight-arrow brother and the town’s sole medical professional, resents his return; tenacious state trooper Ray Brown doubts that Clive has gone straight; and animals have begun to talk to him. Further complications ensue when Clive opens a combination bar/church, hires a colorful band called Blind Donkey with a fascinating female bassist, and faces a wronged former employee of Jake’s. While there’s little actual mystery, most readers will enjoy spending time with the eccentric residents of Cold Storage.

December 1, 2013
After serving time, a reformed drug dealer seeks peace in the small Alaskan village in which he grew up, but trouble hounds his every step. The rumor spread like wildfire up and down the boardwalk in Cold Storage, Alaska: After serving seven years for dealing cocaine, Clive "The Milkman" McCahon--brother to town medic Miles, son of town fixture Annabelle, grandson of Ellie, who opened the first bar in town with her husband--was coming back to town. He'd left 20 years ago, at the age of 15, so not a lot of people knew him. Still, the fact that someone was coming to live in the tiny village, rather than leaving to live somewhere else, was gossip-worthy enough, especially in a gossip-hungry town like Cold Storage. But Clive wasn't coming alone. For one thing, a nosy cop had been coming around, seemingly anxious to catch Clive doing something illegal. And somehow, while picking up a large quantity of cash he was pretty sure his former business partner owed him, Clive had acquired an extremely large, extremely ugly dog. And Clive's former business partner, who was less than convinced that he owed Clive any money, was bound to come looking for him--and the money--sooner or later. But the oddball residents of Cold Storage take care of their own, and Clive is as oddball as they come, especially since he's started communicating with animals. In the author's note at the end of the book, the second in Straley's (The Big Both Ways, 2008, etc.) Cold Storage series, Straley mentions his desire to write a tribute to screwball comedy, and he has certainly done so. The cast of eccentric characters, the sharp, witty dialogue, and the chaotic, frenzied pace of the narrative would do Preston Sturges proud. Readers looking for edge-of-your-seat suspense should look elsewhere, but those who like their crime with a healthy side of humor could hardly do better. Quirky, funny and compulsively readable.

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November 1, 2013

Cold Storage is the hometown of Clive McCahon, who has just been released from a Washington State prison after serving a sentence for dealing drugs. His brother Miles, an army vet-turned-physician's assistant, still lives in the small fishing village with their aging mother. Clive heads home with a pile of money (which he is careful to point out is only what he personally earned) and a very large and willful dog. Unfortunately, his former boss in the drug business (who dabbles in screenwriting) is having cash-flow problems and sees the money as his. The arrival of these newcomers, along with a nosy, by-the-book state trooper, soon causes upheaval in Cold Storage. Clive's plan is to open a bar/church (the church part is to comply with a town ordinance that says the number of bars can't be more than the number of houses of worship). Most everyone is happy with this, but complications inevitably ensue. VERDICT The nature of small-town life is perfectly rendered here, as are the wonders of coastal Alaska. Not quite as madcap as Carl Hiassen (although there is the occasional talking animal) and not quite as hard-boiled as Michael Connelly or Elmore Leonard, Straley's (Cold Water Burning; The Woman Who Married a Bear) latest adventure in America's last frontier should appeal to those authors' fans as well as those who appreciate an unusual location and set of characters in their mysteries.--Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs., Bowling Green

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2014
After seven years in prison, Clive McCahon heads home to Cold Storage, Alaska. On the way, he liberates a pile of cash from his drug-dealer former boss and adopts a dog as big as a wolf. Clive plans to open a bar/church and reacquaint himself with the tiny burg clinging to the sides of the mountains with no roads, no cars, and virtually no sense of the outer world. But his older brother, Miles, suspects that Clive will bring his own excitement; it comes in the person of his vengeful former boss, who, in addition to selling drugs by the pound, also writes screenplays. Accessible only by boat or float plane, Cold Storage seems to be somewhere northwest of Chichagof island, in a vast area Google Maps represents as devoid of any settlements. Miles, a former Army Ranger medic, is the closest thing to a doctor for hundreds of miles. He's also de facto shrink when the lurking darkness of any northern village unhinges someone, but he's blindsided by the whole town's insightful understanding of his innermost thoughts. Straley, author of The Big Both Ways (2008), has created a wonderfully evocative place in Cold Storage. His evocation of nature and human nature approaches the lyrical, and he seems guided by Faulkner's dictum that the only thing truly worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)