Alex McKnight is sipping his beer in the Glasgow Inn when Randy Wilkins, a friend from his days in Detroit, turns up out of the blue. Finally he gets to the point. Randy's in love with a girl called Maria and wants to find her. The only problem being that he last saw her thirty years ago. It's a test of friendship to say the least and, at first, Alex can't think of anything worse. But loyalty gets the better of him and together Alex and Randy go back to Detroit where, as a police officer, Alex got shot. The bullet is still lodged in his chest. Their search for Maria leads them back to the past - a strange country which is unsavoury for Randy and painful for Alex as they hunt for Randy's lost love and Alex's lost life.
Alex McKnight, the burned-out former cop turned PI of Steve Hamilton's Edgar Award-winning first novel,
A Cold Day in Paradise, was a promising catcher who never quite made it to the majors. But his old teammate Randy Wilkins did, for one game with the Detroit Tigers that effectively ended the pitcher's career. What Randy can't forget about that game was the beautiful young woman he met the night before he blew his future in professional sports. Over two decades later, he's come to McKnight to track down the mysterious Maria, whose memory still haunts him. The trail is pretty cold after all these years, but Alex manages to get a line on Maria's relatives, who aren't exactly thrilled to make his acquaintance. In fact, they're downright hostile when Alex finds them in a small Michigan town, and he just barely escapes with his life. But he perseveres, and ultimately makes his way to an even smaller resort town, where the natives are almost as unfriendly. The police chief is so hostile to Alex's efforts that he quickly realizes someone else is on her tail, and that there's a good reason she's been hiding out for so long. Not only that, when someone shoots Randy and almost kills him, Alex is in for another nasty surprise. His old friend isn't who he seems to be, and Alex himself may be the victim of exactly the kind of scam Randy's been running since he left the majors.
Hamilton has a well-developed sense of place, and he's good at exploring the complexities of his protagonist. But it's Randy the reader wants more fully realized, even after the mystery is solved and Alex makes a beeline back to Paradise. This is a taut, well-written thriller that fulfills Hamilton's promise as a writer to watch. --Jane Adams
