Potter's Field

May 1, 2018

Back in Staten Island after a year in Prague (The Woman from Prague), a battered and bruised Ash McKenna is hired by local drug lord (and drag queen) Ginny to find Spencer, an addict friend who has disappeared. A mysterious Kid Vicious is trying to take over the heroin scene and frames Ash for the murder of Brick, the current kingpin. Then Ginny is kidnapped and Ash must try to rescue both her and Spencer while dodging two female bodyguards and several villains at an isolated drug lab. With help from high school best friend Bombay and fellow PI Turquoise Rose, Ash works hard at overcoming his past as a hired hit man to help people legitimately. At 25, he is trying to find himself, but his temper and introspection are less compelling than the action sequences; one wishes he would mature more quickly. VERDICT The fifth and final tale in Hart's "Ash McKenna" series is a fast-paced, adventure-packed read. A mystery book editor and writing instructor, Hart knows his Staten Island setting well and makes strong use of it.--Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 7, 2018
Hart’s fifth Ash McKenna novel (after 2017’s The Woman from Prague) brings the series to a satisfying close. After a long period of travel, the screw-up, former drug addict, and tough guy with a white knight complex reluctantly returns to his Staten Island roots. Can he get it together, or is he headed back to old, bad habits and self-destructive ways? Ash struggles to nail down the basics of a more stable life, but he can’t resist Ginny, a drag queen turned heroin kingpin, who hires him to find a missing associate named Spencer Chavez. Through sometimes bumbling but also courageous and resourceful efforts, he wriggles into the seamy side of Staten Island’s ugly heroin scene while tracking the missing Chavez. He gets his bearings enough to realize that he’s over his head; a few gripping action sequences demonstrate the high-stakes violence of a drug dealer’s turf war. Hart has a fine command of wiseguy comments, a modern take on the noir crime idiom, and enough vulnerability in his protagonist to make the reader sorry to see the last of Ash. Agent: Bree Ogden, D4EO Literary Agency.

June 1, 2018
This final installment of Hart's Ash McKenna series is a hard-boiled coming-of-age story in which the 25-year-old Ash has returned to New York to put his life on track. There's plenty of head-banging, but the focus is on Ash trying to become a PI and reconcile with his mom. Before any of that can happen, though, there's some unfinished business from Ash's past as an amateur sleuth and thug for hire. Ginny Tonic, a drag queen crime lord with whom Ash shares a checkered history, wants Ash to find her vanished assistant. The key to the disappearance is a drug war involving the introduction of deadly fentanyl into the city's � la carte drug menu. But the heart of the novel remains Ash's postadolescent awakening. Sometimes I needed to cry, he says at one point; other times he's putting a bad guy through a car window. This is an unusual and quite affecting crime novel. In the end, we're happy Ash has seen his mom, and we agree with a fellow PI who describes our hero as a good kid trying to do the right thing. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)