Crow's Landing

Starred review from May 28, 2012
In Smith’s outstanding sequel to Red Means Run, upstate New York farmer Virgil Cain lands a heavy metal cylinder while fishing in the Hudson. He secures the cylinder in his boat, which he puts on his trailer, then has lunch at the local roadhouse. After lunch, Virgil finds a stranger hitching the boat trailer to an SUV. When Virgil protests, the man flashes a gold detective badge and identifies himself as “Albany police.” When Virgil further protests, the man sticks a gun in his face and drives off in the SUV with the boat in tow. While Virgil wants nothing more than to get his boat back, others have more interest in the possibly cocaine-filled cylinder, including a Russian drug dealer and the guy who jettisoned the cylinder in the river as the police closed in. Quirky, believable characters headed by laconic, strong-willed Virgil engage in a battle of wits, violence, and foolery that rivals Elmore Leonard at his best. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

July 1, 2012
A sunken treasure that upstate farmer/fisherman Virgil Cain accidentally hooks brings him nothing but harassment, fisticuffs and murder. Ever since a drug dealer named Parson tossed it overboard minutes before his Chris-Craft was boarded by police officers who'd been tipped off, a stainless steel capsule containing 100 pounds of primo Colombian cocaine has been waiting at the bottom of the Hudson for someone to hook it. The lucky winner is Virgil (Red Means Run, 2012). But he doesn't feel lucky. Before he can so much as open the sealed container to see what's inside, it's confiscated, along with his boat, by Detective Dick Hoffman, who puts in his retirement papers the following day. When Hoffman's former colleagues at the Albany PD disclaim any knowledge of Virgil's discovery, the unlucky finder, who senses that he isn't going to get his boat back anytime soon, sets about tracking down Hoffman on his own. In the meantime, Parson presses Dusty Fremont, the girlfriend who already did three years for the drugs he left behind on the Chris-Craft, to bring the capsule to him; Hoffman asks shambling druggie Soup Campbell to find him someone to help him move the product and ends up working with Yuri, a poolroom cowboy who insists that he lives by a code of honor; and Soup, presumably seeing that he's about to be cut out of a rich deal, takes off with the goods. You can certainly see why Virgil's friend, investigator Buddy Townes, says, "This thing goes round and round, doesn't it?" Fifteen routine but thoroughly pleasurable rounds of detection, action, double-crossing and highly competitive treasure-hunting.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2012

A drug deal went bad seven years ago, with the big prize--a large metal cylinder stuffed full of South American cocaine--lost at the bottom of the Hudson River in upstate New York. Enter Virgil Cain, who is just enjoying an afternoon of fishing when he reels in the cylinder. Within an hour, an Albany cop has had Virgil's boat towed away with just a flash of his badge. When Virgil tries to get his boat back, things get complicated. The original drug dealers are still around, but a cop has gone rogue and wants to sell the cocaine. VERDICT Country noir doesn't get much better than Smith's second entry for farmer Virgil Cain (Red Means Run). Readers will soak up this snappy new take on a familiar story with competing bad guys and quirky characters. Think Elmore Leonard does the Adirondacks. [See Prepub Alert, 3/21/12.]

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2012
The second in Smith's Virgil Cain series (following the outstanding Red Means Run, 2012) finds the amiable upstate New York farmer inadvertently in the soup once again. It starts with a solo fishing trip on the Hudson, where Virgil hooks trouble in the form of a steel cylinder filled with cocaine. Word spreads of this unusual catch (you know how people talk around a marina), and soon enough, a bent cop has stolen Virgil's boat, and rather than let the police handle it, Virgil sets off to find his property on his own, quickly crossing paths with construction worker and single mother Dusty, who has her own reasons for wanting the cylinder to either disappear or not fall into the wrong hands. Both ex-cons and self-reliant types struggling to live stress-free straight lives, Virgil and Dusty swirl around one another cautiously but eventually form an effective, bantering alliance (platonic with an edge). Much in the manner of Elmore Leonard, Smith is terrific at shaping ordinary folks into crime-fiction protagonists who rely on wits, humor, and untapped reservoirs of courage to do what needs doing. Another winner from a very talented writer.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)