Synopsis
The sixth novel in the hard-boiled crime fiction series follows Detective Mulheisen as he goes on the trail of mobster Joe Service, who threatens to turn Salt Lake City into a cemetery unless he recovers his millions. Tour.
Reviews
The trajectory of marginal Detroit mobman Joe Service continues to leave a mess in its aftermath, the clearing up of which seems to be the eternal lot of Detroit copper Fang Mulheisen, now in his sixth appearance. In Deadman (1994), Joe was left in Montana, shot in the head. Here, still recovering from his coma, he takes off for Salt Lake City with his smitten nurse, Cathleen Yoder, who was lusted after by the female shooter in the previous novel. Joe and Cathleen become lovers, but his memory isn't as functional as his sex drive: he can't remember where his money is, and he has violent encounters with some large angry hoods from Tonga, whom he isn't sure really exist. Meanwhile Fang is falling hard for a rural woman in Montana, where he is still tracing Joe's part in previous killings. Jackson doesn't move this tale much beyond the plot of the previous episode, which at first might seem like a stumbling block for new readers. But the wacky richness of the author's prose eases such trifles aside. Jackson keeps control of his chaotic material, successfully pausing mid-narrative to linger on the diet-fixated life of a Detroit crime lord or detour to explore a weird car-selling scam. The big Tongans are in a nutso class all of their own. While none of this is perfectly resolved, at least the readers have a better handle on things than Fang, and especially poor old Joe, for whom the only sure things in life are his dogged survival, his powers with the fair sex and the sad fact that Fang will never give up the chase.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Will anybody ever bring avenging mob princess Helen Sedlacek and her lover, contract killer Joe Service, to book for the murders of Detroit crime boss Carmine Busoni and Mario Soper, the hit man sent to Butte to kill them? This installment of their continuing saga finds them split up--Helen's cooling her heels in the Butte jail as Joe, barely recovered from a gunshot to the head, has taken his inexperienced, willing nurse Cate Yoder to Salt Lake City in search of the swag he dimly remembers stashing- -with Helen's nemesis, Detroit's Det. Sgt. Fang Mulheisen (Deadman, 1994, etc.), still playing Achilles to her tortoise. Helen, knowing there's no charge they can hold her on, is already dreaming of Salt Lake City, where Joe's battling Tongan mobsters as he dreams his own dreams of money-laundering scams starring wholesale used-car deals or wholesale hospices for AIDS patients who can die and leave their alleged, squeaky-clean fortunes to Joe. Meantime, the pot continues to boil merrily for Heather Bloom, foiled in her last attempt to kill Helen, who wheedles her way into elderly rancher Grace Garland's heart as she awaits her next shot, and for titanic Humphrey DiEbola, the new Detroit kingpin with a taste for chiles. Jackson's six Mulheisen chronicles have created something unique: a comic soap opera in which the murderously funny writing skewers the characters so surely that nobody can budge an inch, unless you count dying as movement. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Detective Fang Mulheisen of the Detroit Police Department is still on the trail of Joe Service--aka Joe Humann--and Helen Sedlacek, the unlikely couple who killed a Detroit mobster and made off with a considerable amount of the Mob's drug profits. Joe spent most of the previous Mulheisen novel, Deadmen (1994), in a coma, but his recovery is progressing very well owing to the attentive care of his nurse and lover, Cate Yoder. After convincing Cate to help him escape his hospital bed in Montana, the two travel to the big-city environs of Salt Lake City, where Joe's slightly addled hit-man persona places him in conflict with a gang of giant Tongan thugs. Meanwhile Mulheisen and the Mob are also closing in on Joe, who uses Cate to help locate the true love of his life, Helen Sedlacek, who also happens to have all the stolen money. The Mulheisen series is a quirky, comic delight that brings to mind early Elmore Leonard. Joe and Helen are two of the most intriguing villains in recent crime fiction; their lusty carnal relationship plays a key role in the novel's climax, which will leave readers as satisfied as, well . . . Helen and Joe themselves. Wonderful reading from a genre master. Wes Lukowsky
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