I tried not to think. It didn’t happen. It was a bad dream.
Uttley thanking me. Telling me to go home and get some sleep. Edwin standing there
with that lost look on his face. For once all the money in the world wasn’t going
to make a problem go away. Chief Maven, playing his little hard-ass games with us.
I had known so many cops just like him.
Way back when, Alex. Back in Detroit.
Stop right there. Don’t think about anything else. You didn’t really go into that
motel room. You didn’t really see it. The red, the red, all that red.
I tried to stop the next image from coming into my mind, but I could not. I saw the
blood again. A vast shivering red lake of blood.
That day in Detroit. I am there again. The blood, just like tonight. The same color.
The same quality. Blood is always the same.
“Hamilton combines crisp, clear writing, wily, colorful characters and an offbeat
locale in an impressive debut.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A good combination of crafty and colorful characters, an offbeat locale in Michigan’s
Upper Peninsula, and really crisp, clear writing … There are several plots, all woven
together very well. Alex is a very likable character, as are other townspeople, and
the writing moves very swiftly, making this an easy and enjoyable book to read.”
—Sullivan County Democrat
“P.I. Alex McNight’s ‘mean steets’ are the deep pine woods and the small lakeside
towns of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and here the past comes to find him, chilling
as the November wind. A must for PI and suspense fans.”
—Charles Todd, author of Wings of Fire