Good Know Nothing

June 9, 2014
Set in 1936, Kuhlken’s engrossing seventh mystery featuring L.A. lawman Tom Hickey (after 2010’s The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles) focuses on the fate of Tom’s father, Charlie Hickey, who disappeared 25 years earlier. Bud Gallagher, Tom’s last connection to his father, finally tells him about the frame-up that sent Charlie on the run. Bud also gives Tom a manuscript Charlie wrote that’s almost identical to B. Traven’s 1926 novel, The Death Ship. Tom and his sister, Florence, set out to find Traven and some answers. During their journey, they meet some fascinating real-life people such as Ret Marut, who may or may not be Traven; Harry Longabaugh, aka the Sundance Kid; Betty Weaver, the head of a gang that included John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd; and William Randolph Hearst. The Hickeys hear some wild tales and tell some of their own en route to teasing out the surprising truth about Charlie.

August 1, 2014
A parade of historical characters comes under investigation when an LAPD detective and his sister try to solve a mystery about their father. Detective Tom Hickey had quite a dramatic life before he became a cop. After his father, Charlie, vanished-leaving Tom and his younger sister, Florence, with an abusive mother-Tom ran away with Florence when he was only 16. After a couple of other careers, he's working under a corrupt police chief in 1936 Los Angeles. Tom has his wrangles with his boss, but he goes even further off course when Bud Gallagher, Tom's last link to his father, brings him a manuscript Charlie wrote that another author published under his own name. Reading the manuscript gives Tom new insight into his father and new hope that he's still alive. He's determined to find out, even if it means jeopardizing his marriage, leaving his young daughter, running away from the law he swore to uphold and risking his own life. A bumpy meeting with Harry Longabaugh, aka the Sundance Kid, reveals that Charlie had been on a quest to find out the fate of the author Ambrose Bierce after he displeased the all-powerful William Randolph Hearst. The closer Tom and Florence get to Charlie's connection to Hearst, the more they require help from Florence's spiritual leader, evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. But the final answer to their questions about their father lies much closer to home in a tale that zigzags through time and across the country. Kuhlken (The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles, 2010, etc.) overreaches by creating parallel investigations a generation apart and larding this middle-period Hickey family saga with real-life celebrities. It's hard for the central character to hold his own against all that stellar competition.

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July 1, 2014

Don't miss the final installment in Kuhlken's long-running "California Century" saga. The seventh entry (after The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles) is set in the midst of the Great Depression; an avenging Tom is determined to find his father's killer.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2014
California, in the mid-1930s. Tom Hickey, an L.A. cop, receives a copy of a manuscript that could clear up the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his father, Charlie, years earlier. But the story in the manuscript, which appears to be autobiographical, is nearly identical to that of The Death Ship, by the mysterious, pseudonymous novelist B. Traven. Could Charlie be the manuscript's author? Could he still be alive somewhere? And could Traven have appropriated Charlie's story and passed it off as his novel? Tom vows to track Charlie down, even if it means abandoning his job. The seventh California Century mystery, like the other books in the series, cleverly mixes real and fictional characters and events (along with Traven, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst makes an appearance, as does the legendary outlaw Sundance Kid, who, it turns out, might not have died in Bolivia after all). Featuring plenty of period atmosphere, some sharply realized characters, and a ripping good mystery, the book should be a hit not just with series fans, but also with anyone who enjoys a mystery that blurs the line between fact and fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)