Lives Laid Away
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4.3 • 61 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Detroit ex-cop August Snow takes up vigilante justice when his beloved neighborhood of Mexicantown is caught in the crosshairs of a human trafficking scheme.
When the body of an unidentified young Hispanic woman is dredged from the Detroit River, the Wayne County coroner gives her photo to ex-police detective August Snow, insisting August ask around his native Mexicantown to see if anyone recognizes her. August’s good friend Elena, an advocate for undocumented immigrants, immediately pinpoints the girl as local teenager Isadora del Torres. It turns out Izzy isn’t the only young woman to have disappeared during an ICE raid only to turn up dead a few weeks later. Preyed upon by the law itself, the people of Mexicantown have no one to turn to but August. In a guns-blazing wild ride across Detroit, he will put his own life on the line to protect the community he loves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jones effectively dramatizes the Trump administration's approach to illegal immigration in his superior second novel featuring ex-cop August Snow (after 2017's August Snow). Snow was forced out of the Detroit PD after he began digging into allegations that the former mayor was corrupt. The wrongful dismissal lawsuit he filed yielded a multimillion-dollar payday, and Snow has chosen to invest that money in his old neighborhood of Mexicantown. The community he is working to help comes under threat from an ICE crackdown, an initiative that coincides with the death of 19-year-old Isadora del Torres, an undocumented alien who leaped into the Detroit River while dressed as Marie Antoinette. Snow learns that the dead teenager was the victim of a vicious human trafficking ring that may involve corrupt immigration agents. Snow, who is of mixed African-American and Mexican heritage, is an uncompromising crusader with a sense of humor reminiscent of Robert Parker's Spenser. He merits a long literary life.
Customer Reviews
Lives Laid Away
This wasn't as good as the original in my opinion. The author got too bogged down in the so called evil of ICE. It therefore became too much of a polemic and not enough of a real page turner, unlike the first novel.
By the way, the short couple of paragraphs where Mr. Snow's father takes a loan from a vicious pimp in order to pay for cancer treatments for his mother made no sense to me. I was on the Detroit Police Department during that period (a total of 35 years) and we had some of the best medical benefits in the country. I'm quite certain excellent care would have been available in several of Detroit's first rate hospitals and almost all of it covered by medical insurance.
I know, I know, it's a novel but still...
However, keep at it, Mr. Jones as I believe you're a very talented writer.
Sincerely,
Dan McKane