Dead Boyfriends
A Mystery
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3.8 • 31 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Right up until they put him in jail, McKenzie thought the cops were kidding. After all, he did them a favor by stopping a rookie cop from roughing up a distraught woman at a murder scene. But the next thing Mac knows he's in jail, missing an important date with his girlfriend and reliving nightmares he thought he'd finally left behind – and he's vowing payback for all of it. If that means sticking his nose into a crime investigation, well, he's done it before. Only, what appears to be a straightforward case of a cheating boyfriend, his alcoholic girlfriend and an opportune baseball bat proves far more complicated than the police are willing to accept. More disconcerting, as he investigates, Mac finds himself again fighting the influence of a shadowy figure who controls more of what goes on in the Twin Cities than a rational voter would believe. And then there are the unidentified thugs who kill a witness and rough up him and his female lawyer-ally. Soon Mac realizes that the truth of this sordid crime may be as hard to find – and as hard to live with – as the justice he seeks.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Edgar-winner Housewright's uneven fourth crime-solving adventure for Rushmore McKenzie (after 2006's Pretty Girl Gone), the Twin Cities ex-cop turned millionaire blunders into a crime scene featuring a strung-out, blood-spattered Merodie Davies and the rotting corpse of her alcoholic boyfriend, who had been decaying in her filthy home for two weeks. A belligerent rookie cop throws McKenzie in jail for defending Merodie's rights, and when he's released, Merodie's attorney taps McKenzie to help clear her of the murder charges. Though McKenzie doesn't have a PI license, he agrees to help, hoping the investigation will distract him from his romantic travails and a recurring nightmare about a shooting that went horribly wrong. He discovers Merodie has an alarming string of dead boyfriends, plus a live one a very nasty drug dealer fresh out of jail. McKenzie's sleuthing prompts some shocking confessions and leads to a creepy but unsatisfying resolution. Housewright can't decide whether to go for the laughs or the chills in this installment.
Customer Reviews
Lazy, lazy
I've read each of this author's books in this series and somewhat enjoyed them all up til this one. He doesn't spend nearly enough time developing his characters in this story. Also, the smug attitude of the main character, McKenzie, which was kind of fun in the earlier stories just comes off as plain arrogance in this one. I guess the early success gave him the sense that he could phone this book in. He had plenty of pages left he could have used. I feel very shortchanged with this attempt.