Hard Freeze: A Joe Kurtz Novel (Joe Kurtz Thriller)

Amazon.com Review Having proven he can write hard-nosed noir with 2001's Hardcase , prolific genre-crossing author Dan Simmons reintroduces his gritty protagonist Joe Kurtz and promptly pitches him into the icy waters of Hard Freeze . Two pages into the book, the ex-private investigator is just minding his business on the frozen streets of Buffalo and already he's got a contract on his head. As Kurtz says, "It was shaping up to be an especially tough winter." When he finds out who the money behind the hit is, Joe's already outgunned and outmanned but never outsmarted. This wily warrior is always one step ahead of whoever is chasing him, be they crooked cops, calculating serial killers, corpulent mob bosses, or not-so-distressed damsels. Simmons has crafted a perfectly ruthless crime novel with a relentless pace that doesn't let up until the final page. The single-minded Joe Kurtz is a wonderfully flawed and deliciously soiled noir icon. He's smart, salty, literate, smushy in all the right places, and not somebody to cross. In all, Hard Freeze is a fast-paced thriller that successfully interweaves amazingly disparate plot threads in an explosive--really explosive--climax. --Jeremy Pugh From Publishers Weekly Hannibal Lecter meets the Godfather in multitalented Simmons's hard, brutal crime thriller, set in Buffalo, N.Y., and second in the series after Hardcase (2001). Ex-private eye Kurtz, recently released from prison after serving 11 years for killing the murderers of his beautiful partner, Samantha Fielding, finds himself stalked by the Attica Three Stooges Moe, Larry and Curly. After a bloody shootout that leaves one Stooge dead, Kurtz takes Curly for a ride in a speeding car and says: "You can take one in the head.... Then I dump you. You can take one in the belly, maybe we crash. Or you can take a chance and tuck and roll. Plus, there's some snow out there. Probably as soft as a goosedown pillow." Exit Curly. Kurtz soon learns that he's been marked for death by a local Mafia don and that the man actually responsible for Samantha's death is alive and well. And that's just for starters. Meanwhile, Kurtz is approached by John Wellington Frears, a world-famous violinist dying of colon cancer, to find his daughter's murderer a serial child-killer so adept at changing identities he could give lessons to Ferdinand Demara, the Great Impostor. Violent, fast-paced, with a high body count and plenty of sanguinary and pyrotechnic detail, this high-octane thriller should please both hard-boiled addicts and Simmons devotees. Whatever qualms one may have about Kurtz surely one of the darkest, most amoral protagonists of recent crime fiction it's Simmons at his hard-driving best. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. A Reason to Kill...Joe Kurtz, former investigator and convicted felon, is on parole. But his years in Attica for snuffing the mob killers of his beautiful partner didn't make his old haunts any safer. Back on the streets, he's already marked by a local Mafia don with unfinished business.A Reason to Live...If watching his back wasn't enough, Kurtz has been hired by gravely ill John Frears whose daughter met a grisly fate at the hands of a child-murderer. Frears wants one thing before he dies: for Kurtz to find the fiend that the authorities couldn't. But the calculating killer-a master at changing identities-has a little unfinished business of his own.A Reason to Die...Dodging a contract on his head, and tracking a serial killer on the loose, Kurtz is plunging headfirst into the icy waters of revenge-as both victim and private avenger. It's going to be a tough winter in Buffalo for Joe Kurtz-cold enough to freeze the blood.