From Publishers Weekly
In his last appearance, in Hit on the House , Detroit cop Fang Mulheisen chased the killer of a mob hoodlum. He lost the chase and the trail went cold. Oh well. Jackson, who delights in sending his readers down these supposed cul-de-sacs, employs circuitous characterization and irony as a counterbalance to conventional crime fiction notions of right and wrong. Here, as corpses accumulating in Butte, Mont., suggest the involvement of Motor City mobsters, Fang takes a busman's holiday and finds himself in a strange land where the natives smile on the streets, crystal whitewater rapids beckon and women strip at the sight of a hot spring. A Detroit mob enforcer named Joe is found nearly dead on the side of a Montana road. His girlfriend Helen, the daughter of a dead mobster and Fang's best suspect in the unsolved hit featured in the last book, has vanished with lots of cash. Hit killer Heather, hired by the mob to finish off Joe, is sidetracked by her love for the pretty nurse who's taking care of Joe, preaching the gospel of Jesus and fondling her patient's privates during sponge baths. This being the West, there must be a showdown--this time involving mobsters, cops and locals. Jackson's characters are a generous, joyous gift: Fang as fish out of water, Helen as moll on the run and Heather as a homophobe's nightmare. Jackson lost 10 writing years between his debut The Blind Pig , and Grootka , his truly masterful followup. He's back on track now with this, his second winner in as many years.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Last year's
Hit on the House marked the return of Jackson's Detroit detective Fang ("Mul") Mulheisen after an absence of 10 years. This is a continuation of that extraordinary comeback novel. Helen Sedlacek, who killed the head of the Detroit Mob to avenge her father's murder and then escaped to parts unknown with freelance thug Joe Service, seems to have surfaced in Montana. The clue that sends Mul to Montana is the shooting of someone named Joe Humann, who may or may not be Service. Humann isn't talking--he's alive but in a coma--and his female companion, probably Helen Sedlacek, has disappeared. Humann's hospital bills are being paid anonymously via cashier's check, which fits in with the fact that Service and Helen stole megacash from the Mob. The dense, multilayered plot will keep readers guessing, and the well-rounded characterizations serve to create sympathy for some of the seemingly least sympathetic characters imaginable--except for Mul, of course, who is an unmitigated delight on every level. One scene in particular is destined to become a hard-boiled classic: forced to take a nude sauna with an old pal's wife and teenage daughter, the charmingly naive Mul sits in utter discomfort, caught between good intentions and roving eyes. Superb genre fiction.
Wes Lukowsky
