What the Dead Leave Behind
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
Once a police detective in St. Paul, Minnesota, Rushmore McKenzie has become not only an unlikely millionaire, but an occasional unlicensed private investigator, doing favors for friends and people in need. When his stepdaughter Erica asks him for just such a favor, McKenzie doesn’t have it in him to refuse. Even though it sounds like a very bad idea right from the start.
The father of Malcolm Harris, a college friend of Erica’s, was found murdered a year ago in a park in New Brighton, a town just outside the Twin Cities. With no real clues and all the obvious suspects with concrete alibis, the case has long since gone cold. As McKenzie begins poking around, he soon discovers another unsolved murder that’s tangentially related to this one. And all connections seem to lead back to a group of friends the victim was close with. But all McKenzie has is a series of odd, even suspicious, coincidences—until someone decides to make it all that more serious and personal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Unlicensed PI Rushmore "Mac" McKenzie tackles perhaps his most complex case yet in Edgar-winner Housewright's witty 14th Minnesota-based mystery (after 2016's Stealing the Countess). Mac should have known from the outset that this was going to be a challenge. First, it's a cold case the stabbing murder of Frank Harris, who worked for human resources in a large furniture company, in a Minneapolis suburb a year earlier. Next, the person bringing it to Mac the victim's college-age son, Malcolm is beside himself with rage and grief. Frank's widow says she's comfortable with her husband's murder remaining unsolved, but Malcolm needs closure and he needs it now. Once Mac begins to investigate, he finds little the local police missed. Once he starts asking questions, however, the intrepid former cop learns of another unsolved murder that's possibly related. But can he unearth the connection? Housewright is such a pro at plot and character development that it's nearly impossible to put this entry down.
