The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles

May 3, 2010
James Ellroy fans will welcome Kuhlken's intriguing sixth California Century mystery (after 2008's "The Vagabond Virgins"). Set in 1926 and the first in the series chronologically, this entry focuses on the early career of PI Tom Hickey. Outraged to learn that a black friend has been lynched in L.A.'s Echo Park, news that the mainstream media has suppressed, Hickey risks his day job as a meat salesman to look into the killing. Hickey explores possible links to crooked cops, the Ku Klux Klan, city hall, newspaper moguls William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler, and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who recently resurfaced after a mysterious five-month disappearance. Kuhlken mixes historical and fictional characters with an ease that will remind many of Max Allan Collins's Nate Heller series ("True Crime", etc.). He's equally adept at melding the murder inquiry with Hickey's struggles with his dysfunctional family. "(May)" .

March 22, 2010
James Ellroy fans will welcome Kuhlken's intriguing sixth California Century mystery (after 2008's The Vagabond Virgins
). Set in 1926 and the first in the series chronologically, this entry focuses on the early career of PI Tom Hickey. Outraged to learn that a black friend has been lynched in L.A.'s Echo Park, news that the mainstream media has suppressed, Hickey risks his day job as a meat salesman to look into the killing. Hickey explores possible links to crooked cops, the Ku Klux Klan, city hall, newspaper moguls William Randolph Hearst and Harry Chandler, and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who recently resurfaced after a mysterious five-month disappearance. Kuhlken mixes historical and fictional characters with an ease that will remind many of Max Allan Collins's Nate Heller series (True Crime
, etc.). He's equally adept at melding the murder inquiry with Hickey's struggles with his dysfunctional family.

March 1, 2010
An unreported lynching spurs a musician to action.

Los Angeles in 1926 has four supreme power brokers: rival newsmen Hearst and Chandler; rogue police chief Two Gun Davis; and charismatic, showboating evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. None of them is eager to acknowledge that Frank Gaines has been strung up in Echo Park, right across from Aimee's Temple. But a chance reading of the Forum, an underground leaflet, brings the outrage to the attention of Tom Hickey, a white musician eking out a living for himself and his rowdy young sister Florence. Hickey and Gaines had been friends, and Hickey can't let the assault pass in the silence everyone else is sharing. His investigation, which gets some help from LAPD detective Leo Weiss, leads past the Klan, union busters and spurious business dealings to a cover-up of a poisoning centered on romantic philandering that implicates Hickey's own mother, Milly, a wildly chaotic, abusive woman who tormented her children until they finally ran away. Hickey will be tailed, beaten up and shot at; Weiss will be removed from the force; and Florence will nearly be brought to a complete mental collapse by the actions of Milly and her latest paramour.

Kuhlken (The Vagabond Virgins, 2008, etc.) overloads his plot beyond his ability to keep the tangled lines clear and sprinkles 1926 decor with the gusto of a tour bus guide.

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Starred review from April 1, 2010
In 1926 Los Angeles, Tom Hickey's black mentor and friend is found hanging in Echo Park, across the street from evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson's temple. Tom fears the KKK killed Frank, but the newspapers and the police deny that there was a lynching. So Tom sets out to uncover the truth and stop a race riot. VERDICT This prequel to Shamus finalist Kuhlken's Hickey family historical series (and the sixth entry, after "The Vagabond Virgins") reveals how the Hickey Detective Agency comes to be. Kuhlken demonstrates his command of keeping a story moving with a meticulously thought-out plot while populating it with believable characters. Fans of Les Roberts's Saxon novels will enjoy this title for its similar L.A. ambience. It will also appeal to readers interested in early 20th-century California history. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 1/09.]

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2010
Kuhlkens series about private investigator Tom Hickey and his offspring is set in California at various times throughout the twentieth century. The first of the series, The Loud Adios, took place in 1943; the most recent, The Vagabond Virgins, was set in 1979 and featured Toms sons, Alvaro and Clifford. Chronologically, Kuhlkens latest is the first in the series. Set in 1926, when Tom was in his early 20s, its the origin story, relating the events that turned Hickey from a musician into a private eye. Dismayed to discover that a friend has been murderedlynched, in factTom decides to find out why the press is ignoring the story: Is it simply because the murdered man was black, or is there a deeper cover-up involved? As usual, Kuhlken works real people and events into the story (evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson and Randolph Hearst, for example) and vividly anchors the reader in the storys time and place. The social consciousness and the L.A. setting across decades make this series a fine choice for fans of Walter Mosleys Easy Rawlins novels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)