The Blue Cheer

• P.I. Frank Johnson has moved to Scarab, West Virginia, drawn by the promise of lazy days and the lure of its tranquil mountains. What he finds instead is a Stinger rocket exploding over his back yard. His ensuing investigation uncovers a cult called the Blue Cheer, a racist group with ugly terrorist plans. As events heat up, blood starts to spill, and for Frank it all gets real personal real quick. With the help of his bounty hunter pal, he sets out to bring the Blue Cheer to justice ― any way he can.

Set in the remote mountains of West Virginia, this gritty contemporary detective novel, Lynskey's second to feature former PI Frank Johnson (after 2006's The Dirt-Brown Derby), will remind many of such masters of hard-boiled prose as Loren Estleman. Johnson has sought to still the memories of a deadly encounter with the Ku Klux Klan by retreating to the Appalachian town of Scarab, where people—and friends—are few and far between. Johnson witnesses what appears to be a Stinger missile strike against an unmanned aerial drone hovering above his yard, and he calls on his closest local companion, Old Man Maddox, a retired CIA agent. When the pair pursue the mystery with the local sheriff, a cascade of violence overwhelms the quiet community—murders that may be connected with a shadowy local racist cult known as the Blue Cheer. Despite a somewhat predictable resolution, the first-rate writing will leave readers eager to see more of Johnson. (Mar.)
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*Starred Review* PI Frank Johnson, who moved to rural West Virginia in search of peace and quiet, stumbles on his noisiest case yet when a Stinger missile explodes in the air over his property. He thinks it ought to be a simple matter to find out why the missile was in the skies over West Virginia, but when he is beaten up, and then his best friend's wife is murdered, Frank quickly realizes he has caught the tail of a monster. Soon he is hot on the trail of a cult called the Blue Cheer, and stopping their murderous plans means putting his own neck right in the line of fire. This is the second novel to feature Frank Johnson (following The Dirty-Brown Derby, 2006),nd it definitely lives up to the buzz the author has been generating among genre enthusiasts. Lynskey has a sure hand, and he tackles the PI genre like a veteran, packing the book with great lines like "Awaking the next morning on the cusp of the DTs, I quit drinking cold turkey, a knack the Black Irish carry in their genes." Top-of-the-line hard-boiled fare from a novelist and a small press we hope to hear more from in the future. David Pitt
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