Steve Hamilton |
Steve Hamilton writes the award winning Alex McKnight series.
McKnight is a private investigator of sorts. He was a Detroit cop, but after his partner was killed, he moves to the UP of Michigan. After a short unsuccessful stint as an official PI, he manages to continue to attract serious trouble and solve mysteries.
Location: Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, primarily between St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie including the Bay Mills Reservation.
Violence and language.
Recurring characters of note:
Alex McKnight, reluctant private investigator
Vinnie LeBlanc- a Chippewa Indian, his good friend
Leon Purdell- another friend and sometimes P.I.
Natalie- his girlfrind
Jeannie- his ex-wife
#1 A Cold Day in Paradise 1998
Alex has returned to the UP of Michigan to a string of cabins built by his now-deceased father. He's trying to fix up the cabins and rent them to fishermen, etc., while living in one of them himself. He is still fighting survivor guilt from the incident that ended his career as a Detroit policeman. His partner was killed and he survived when they were gunned down by a mentally unbalanced man. Alex had to take early retirement at 3/4 pay.
Edwin, a good friend, has an addiction to gambling. He keeps promising to go straight, but can't keep it up. Meanwhile, things are awkward because Mike had an affair with Edwin's wife.
When Edwin calls Alex in the middle of the night to report that he has found a man in a motel room with his throat slit, Alex goes there first, and then reports to the police. The police are not happy they weren't called first and Alex finds himself in constant trouble with the Sault Ste. Marie police chief.
Edwin seems to have a connection to yet another murder, and then he goes missing.
The perpetrator begins to target Alex, and the evidence points to this being the man who shot Alex and his partner in Detroit. Corrections insists that man is still in prison in Jackson.
This story has more than one plot twist, and it won the Edgar Award.
#2 Winter of the Wolf Moon 2000
#3 The Hunting Wind 2002
#4 North of Nowhere 2003
#5 Blood is the Sky 2004
#6 Ice Run 2005
#7 A Stolen Season 2006
Summer never seems to arrive in the UP that year. Natalie has returned to Detroit to take on an undercover assignment to capture a gun smuggling ring.
Alex and his friends rescue three men who are so drunk they crash their boat, an historic Chris-Craft, into some old pilings. As thanks for this, Alex and friends are hounded and continually beaten up. A locked box that went down with the boat is missing, and the boaters are sure Alex has it.
#8 Beneath the Book Tower: An Alex McKnight Short Story 2011
#9 Misery Bay 2011
#10 Die a Stranger 2012
#11 Let It Burn 2013
#12 Dead Man Running 2018
This will probably end up being one of the best books I've read this year.
A serial killer is apprehended in Arizona, and he says he will reveal the locations of previous victims, but he will only talk to one person. That person is Alex McKight. The FBI flies him out west.
Alex can't figure out any relationship between himself and Martin, the killer. Martin knows fact after fact about Alex. The FBI doesn't want to believe that Alex doesn't know him.
Martin engineers a mass murder and his own escape, and Alex must chase him across the country, finally discovering the connection between them. Then the "game" becomes personal.
The author credits several true crime books about serial killers as research material that I have also read. The whole book is chilling.
#13 Riddle Island (Short Story) 2020
