A Stolen Season: An Alex McKnight Novel (Alex McKnight Novels)

From Publishers Weekly The chill of Michigan's Upper Peninsula doesn't cool the action in Edgar-winner Hamilton's expertly paced seventh Alex McKnight novel (after 2005's Ice Run ). On an unusually frigid Fourth of July night, the retired Detroit cop and his sometime partner, Leon Prudell, save three men from a boating accident in Lake Superior's Waishkey Bay. But the men return to accuse their rescuers of stealing a locked box off the boat, and Alex discovers that they're squeezing members of the Bay Mills Indian reservation for government-financed prescription painkillers. As Alex closes in on the dealers, he narrowly avoids death. Meanwhile, his long-distance girlfriend, Ontario police officer Natalie Reynaud, goes undercover in Toronto to ferret out an illegal arms dealer. When she pays Alex a surprise visit at his Paradise, Mich., cabin, their operations intersect with tragic results. Plot turnarounds and double-crosses ensure a startling conclusion. Copyright В© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Hamilton, who received the Edgar Award for his first mystery, A Cold Day in Paradise (1999), is now on his seventh installment in the series starring private eye Alex McKnight, who works as a cabin curator and sometimes private eye in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. McKnight has a familiar backstory for a private eye: he is a one-time cop with a troubled past (in McKnight's case, the trauma of having his partner killed). Hamilton, however, uses McKnight's break from his former life as a way of exploring his character's efforts to escape despair and find some semblance of meaning. He found at least some of that meaning in the last adventure, Ice Run (2004), in the form of a tentative love affair with a female cop. This time the action shuttles between McKnight's attempts to stop a prescription pain-killer drug ring in Paradise, Michigan, and his girlfriend's assignment to Toronto as an undercover gun dealer. Hamilton's gamble of putting the most exciting action offstage with the girlfriend pays off big-time here. Hair-raising suspense with poignant characterization. Connie Fletcher Copyright В© American Library Association. All rights reserved It's the most miserable summer anyone can remember in Paradise, Michigan. Alex and his occasional partner Leon are outside the local casino, waiting to see the 4th July firework celebrations when they witness a spectacular boat crash. They drag four men from the wreck and revive them. When Alex's friend Vinnie is later beaten up by four strangers, it doesn't take Alex long to figure out who they might be. Vinnie suspects that these strangers have been preying on some of the local tribes-people, pressuring them to make fraudulent claims for medicine, which the men then sell on at street value to drug addicts. When Alex and Vinnie begin to investigate, the men are forced into desperate action. One of them winds up dead, while the others are determined to prevent Alex and Vinnie from cutting off their drug supply. These dangerous newcomers receive a warm welcome from one quarter - the criminal fraternity. For one particular criminal in Toronto - watching his supply of guns drying up - a trio of American men with new contacts and a hunger for narcotics is just what the doctor ordered. At least Alex can be certain that his girlfriend, Natalie, is safe in Toronto, working on a long term undercover operation. But Alex doesn't realise the true nature of the op - Natalie has infiltrated the gun-running group and is perilously close to having her cover blown. Then she comes face-to-face with three men who could be used to redefine the word vicious.. On a cold, miserable night in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a night that wouldn't feel so unusual if it wasn't the Fourth of July, an antique wooden boat runs full-speed into a line of old railroad pilings in the shallow waters of Waishkey Bay. When Alex McKnight helps rescue the passengers, he finds three men. The driver is out cold, the other two are dazed but conscious. When they're all finally back on dry land and sent away in an ambulance, Alex figures he'll never see them again. He couldn't be more wrong. It's not enough that Natalie Reynaud, the woman who has become the center of his life, is five hundred miles away, working a dangerous undercover operation in Toronto. Now Alex has even more problems when the men from the boat get tangled up with his best friend, Vinnie. It's all Alex can do to keep Vinnie from killing them or being killed by them. With Vinnie in danger on one side of the border, and Natalie in just as much danger on the other, what comes next will be the absolute darkest hour of Alex's life, beyond anything he's ever faced before. Steve Hamilton surpasses his previous works with this suspenseful page-turner that delves into the darkness and determination of the human spirit. If you thought you knew Alex McKnight and how far he'll go for the people he cares about . . . think again. "On a cold, miserable night in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a night that wouldn't feel so unusual if it wasn't the Fourth of July, an antique wooden boat runs full-speed into a line of old railroad pilings in the shallow waters of Waishkey Bay. When Alex McKnight helps rescue the passengers, he finds three men. The driver is out cold, the other two are dazed but conscious. When they're all finally back on dry land and sent away in an ambulance, Alex figures he'll never see them again." "He couldn't be more wrong." "It's not enough that Natalie Reynaud, the woman who has become the center of his life, is five hundred miles away, working a dangerous undercover operation in Toronto. Now Alex has even more problems when the men from the boat get tangled up with his best friend, Vinnie. It's all Alex can do to keep Vinnie from killing them or being killed by them." "With Vinnie in danger on one side of the border, and Natalie in just as much danger on the other, what comes next will be the absolute darkest hour of Alex's life, beyond anything he's ever faced before."--Jacket. While enjoying fireworks on the edge of Lake Superior, Alex McKnight and his former partner come to the aid of three men in the wreck of an antique wooden boat, a rescue that draws Alex into a deadly confrontation with gun smugglers and drug dealers.