Tangled Web UK Review February 2007
A Stolen Season by
Steve Hamilton
hbk out October 06
Published by Orion
at £18.99
A good straight-down-the-middle American thriller, the seventh in the
author's Alex McKnight series. A classical format, it concerns an ex-cop
who resigned years before when his partner was killed, then turns private
eye for a short time. The location is different in that he lives in a remote
peninsula in northern Michigan not far from the Canadian border and
some of the action takes place in Canada. The title comes from the fact
that the very short summer that they get up there fails to come at all that
year, which remains cold, wet and misty – there is a local joke offered
that 'summer was on a Wednesday last year!'
At the outset, Alex and a couple of his friends rescue three men from a
boat that crashes into submerged piles during a foggy night on Lake
Superior. Far from being grateful, the three seem to spend part of the
book beating up their rescuers! Alex has a girlfriend, a Canadian cop
from Ontario, who featured in at least one of the previous books in the
series. She goes off to Toronto on an undercover job and leaves Alex
bereft of his love life.
As usual, a reviewer must stay 'shtumm' on the details of the plot, but it
involves gun-running and drugs across the border. The writing is
excellent and probably has a higher percentage of dialogue than any other
book I've read for some time. The characterisation is excellent and
perhaps there is even a little too much of Alex's introspection and
gnashing of teeth. But it's a good thriller, with plenty of action and a
beginning, a middle and an end, which you often don't get these days.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Thousands of New and used Books at your Fingertips...
Support Tangled Web - Buy Your Books Online
