Ticket to Ride
-
- $7.99
-
- $7.99
Publisher Description
Iowa lawyer Sam McCain is out to solve the murder of a Korean War vet in this 1960s-era mystery by the New York Times–bestselling author of Bad Moon Rising.
Iowa, 1965. For small-town lawyer and part-time investigator Sam McCain, the free love era isn’t all that free or loving. The alcoholic judge he works for just finished a stint in rehab; the beautiful colleague he’d been pining for has gone back to her husband; and an old friend recently came home from Vietnam in a coffin. It all makes guys like Harrison Doran—the handsome, outspoken antiwar activist who stands to inherit millions—difficult to stomach.
So when local war hero Lou Bennett is murdered after an altercation at a protest rally and Harrison is arrested for the crime, it’s Sam’s job to defend the loudmouthed ladies’ man. But Sam soon discovers there’s more to Lou’s past than the time he spent overseas. And as he watches his provincial hometown of Black River Falls transform to the sounds of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and the Beatles, Sam begins to wonder if the good old days were ever all that great.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Smalltown small-mindedness drives Gorman's entertaining eighth mystery to feature lawyer Sam McCain (after 2007's Fools Rush In). As the Vietnam war escalates during the summer of 1965, Lou Bennett, the socially prominent father of a slain soldier, interrupts a protest demonstration in Sam's hometown of Black River Falls, Iowa. When Bennett's murdered that night, the stupid and prejudiced local police chief arrests an obnoxiously mouthy protester. Sam soon learns that the crime may actually be related to Bennett's shady business dealings and his involvement in the murder of a lower-class young woman he considered unworthy of his son. Besides getting the pop culture of the period right, Gorman captures the baffled frustration of provincial folk who don't want to believe that things are more complicated than they look, that it's sometimes a mistake to trust people in authority. Readers will be left wondering whether it's time for Sam to grow up and leave home.
