Blood is the Sky by Steve Hamilton

This is my second novel by Hamilton, the first having been The Lock Artist. My enthusiasm for him continues, and after reading Blood in the Sky, I’ve immediately bought three more of his books. I have obviously moved him into the top echelon of my power authors, along with Daniel Silva, Robert Crais, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, and Vince Flynn. I’d include Stieg Larsson, but he’s dead after leaving us with only three novels. This is one of Hamilton’s Alex McKnight series, and he seems to be a damaged hero, a former cop along the likes of Elvis Cole. Since Hamilton grew up in Detroit, he uses Michigan and the surrounding area for his venue.

In this story, McKnight is living in a secluded cabin that someone has burned to the ground, and to grieve the loss of the cabin, originally built by his father, McKnight decides to rebuild it. He accepts the help of his neighbor, Vinnie, an Indian who has moved off his nearby reservation. Vinnie, a longtime friend, eventually confesses that his brother, Tom, is missing. Tom is an ex-con and he has taken Vinnie’s identity to go into Canada (a parole violation) as a guide for a hunting party. The hunting party turns out to be a group of guys that are “heavy hitters” from Detroit, their leader being Red Albright. In order to solve the mystery, McKnight pulls in help from his former partner, Leon Prudell (does it sound like Cole needing help from Joe Pike – yes, but the characters are very different from both Cole and Pike). To tell you more would give away too much of the plot. I liked the narrative that carried the book, and here is one line that I thought was pretty funny: “There is crime in Detroit. There is crime in Detroit like there are fountains in Paris, like there are canals in Venice. People all over the world know this about Detroit. It might not be fair to think that way. You can look at the art museum and the new ballpark and the casinos and restaurants and believe its all part of the Detroit Renaissance, and maybe you’d be right. You can even love the place like I do. But it’s still Detroit, and always will be.”

West Coast Don