Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
A new book in the nationally bestselling series that has wowed critics and readers alike.
David Loogan returns! Loogan is living in Ann Arbor with Detective Elizabeth Waishkey and her daughter, Sarah. He's settled into a quiet routine as editor of the mystery magazine Gray Streets-until one day he finds a manuscript outside his door. It begins: "I killed Henry Kormoran."
Anthony Lark has a list of names-Terry Dawtrey, Sutton Bell, Henry Kormoran. To his eyes, the names glow red on the page. They move. They breathe. The people on the list have little in common except that seventeen years ago they were involved in a notorious robbery. And now Anthony Lark is hunting them down, and he won't stop until every one of them is dead.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Dolan follows Bad Things Happen, his acclaimed debut, with a riveting crime novel also featuring Ann Arbor, Mich., amateur sleuth David Loogan, editor of the mystery magazine Gray Streets. When Loogan finds a manuscript outside his office door—a story about three murders, two already committed and one still being planned—he instantly realizes it's not a work of fiction but a declaration from the murderer of two local men. With the help of his police detective girlfriend, Elizabeth Waishkey, Loogan uncovers an elaborate, at times convoluted conspiracy including criminals involved in a 17-year-old bank robbery gone wrong, an adulterous statesman, a paranormal fantasy novelist turned tabloid journalist, and a charismatic politician running for the Senate. As the body count rises, the intrepid Loogan gets closer to the truth—and closer to becoming the killer's next victim. Relentless pacing, a wry sense of humor, and an engaging protagonist add up to another winner for Dolan. Author tour. (July)Library Journal
David Loogan is back, still working as editor of the mystery magazine Gray Streets. All's well until he trips over a manuscript outside his door that opens with the sentence "I killed Henry Kormoran." And it's not fiction. Dolan's 2009 debut, Bad Things Happen, met with success, so many thriller fans will be looking for this one.Kirkus Reviews
A second mind-bending case for Ann Arbor editor David Loogan that begins just as simply and ominously and takes the reader on just as wild a journey.
Anthony Lark's mission is simple: to kill three of the men involved in a fatally botched bank robbery 17 years ago. He's already dispatched two of his targets—an impressive feat, considering that one of them, Terry Dawtrey, is serving 30 years in Kinross Prison—when he identifies them both and announces his third, nurse practitioner Sutton Bell, in an anonymous letter to Loogan (Bad Things Happen,2009), who promptly shares it with his ladylove, police detective Elizabeth Waishkey. The timely intervention of aspiring tabloid reporter Lucy Navarro saves Bell from Lark's initial attempt and gives Dolan a chance to fill in some back story. Lark's motives are obscure, but they have something to do with U.S. Senate candidate Callie Spencer, whose father Harlan was the Chippewa County Sheriff shot and paralyzed in the bank robbery and whose father-in-law, John Casterbridge, is the senator she hopes to succeed. Lark keeps coming nerve-wrackingly close to killing Bell; Loogan and Elizabeth keep coming heartbreakingly close to catching Lark; and yet the tale still goes on. To divulge any more about the plot would spoil some of the dozens of surprises Dolan springs. But it's not too much to say that nearly every cast member, however minor, is complicit in some crime; that nearly every one, even though they're all rooted in excruciatingly familiar generic types, gets a chance to reveal unexpected depths; and that Dolan mixes his pitches with an ace's judgment, steadily complicating Lark's quest while keeping the psychology of his characters considerably more plausible than in Loogan's equally baroque debut.
The rare crime novel with something for everyone who reads crime fiction.