Misery Bay: An Alex McKnight Novel

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Amazon.com ReviewALEX MCKNIGHT IS BACK in the long-awaited return of one of crime fiction's most critically acclaimed series.On a frozen January night, a young man loops one end of a long rope over the branch of a tree. The other end he ties around his neck. A snowmobiler will find him thirty-six hours later, his lifeless eyes staring out at the endless cold water of Lake Superior. It happens in a lonely corner of the Upper Peninsula, in a place they call Misery Bay.             Alex McKnight does not know this young man, and he won’t even hear about the suicide until another cold night, two months later and 250 miles away, when the door to the Glasgow Inn opens and the last person Alex would ever expect to see comes walking in to ask for his help.              What seems like a simple quest to find a few answers will turn into a nightmare of sudden violence and bloody revenge, and a race against time to catch a ruthless killer. McKnight knows all about evil, of course, having faced down a madman who killed his partner and left a bullet next to his heart. Mobsters, drug dealers, hit men—he’s seen them all, and they’ve taken away almost everything he’s ever loved. But none of them could have ever prepared him for the darkness he’s about to face.Author One-on-One: Steve Hamilton and Michael Koryta In this Amazon exclusive, Steve Hamilton is interviewed by fellow thriller author Michael Koryta. The tables get turned when Hamilton interviews Koryta on the The Ridge page.Koryta: Misery Bay opens with relentless good cheer--a frigid night, a corpse dangling from a tree. And, back for the first time in a few years, Alex McKnight. Tell us a little about how it felt to be back with him from the writer's perspective.Hamilton: It was great to be back, for the simple reason that it had been so long. Almost five years between books! I hadn’t planned on being away from the series for so long, but I sorta ended up getting lost at sea there for a while. A standalone that just about kills you will do that.Koryta: You opened your career with seven straight Alex McKnight novels, and then followed with two standalones, including last year's The Lock Artist, which just won the Edgar for best novel. Did you always know you were going to return to Alex, or was there a time when you thought you were done?Hamilton: I knew that, after A Stolen Season, the last McKnight book, I really needed to take a break. And that Alex needed a break, too--as strange as that may sound to say about a fictional character. I just couldn’t bring myself to drag him out of his cabin, into some new sort of trouble again. Does that make any sense?Koryta: Absolutely! I know you don't write from an outline. What's something from Misery Bay that stands out as a favorite unanticipated development?Hamilton: I guess that would have to be the relationship that develops between Alex and his old nemesis, Chief Roy Maven. I knew they’d have to unlikely allies in this book, but actually having them together for so long, I was surprised to see how well that worked. I wouldn’t call them good friends or anything at this point, but they definitely had to come to a new understanding about each other.Koryta: We both got our publishing start through the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America contest. So tell me: who's your all-time favorite fictional detective, and who is a newer discovery that you're excited about?Hamilton: All-time favorite fictional detective? Still has to be Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder, I think. As far as a newer discovery... If you’re talking about a new private eye, I honestly don’t know of one right now. The genre has been down a little bit lately, and I haven’t read anything new and great for while. (Maybe this year’s contest winner? There’s always hope!)Koryta: As I look over my shoulder at the Steve Hamilton section in my bookshelf, I can't help but notice some repeated themes in the titles: winter, north, ice, cold, wind. And, oh yeah, misery. Be honest: are you really that inspired by cold weather, or is this evidence that you desperately want to move to the tropics?Hamilton: To me, when I think about “hardboiled” or “noir,” I think about cold. When just going outside to your car is an act of courage, that has to say something about you already, right? I know that Raymond Chandler’s idea of hardboiled was a sun-baked street in Los Angeles, but for me there’s just something about a frozen lake and a cold wind that will turn you inside-out.Koryta: I’m in sun-drenched Los Angeles right now and it’s tough to argue that point. This is your 10th novel. It has been 13 years since your Edgar-winning debut, A Cold Day in Paradise. What has changed in your perspective and approach to writing in that time and throughout those books?Hamilton: Well, it doesn’t get any easier. Or at least it shouldn’t, or else you’re doing it wrong. And I’m STILL waiting for a great idea for a book to come floating by and land on my shoulder like a some kind of beautiful butterfly. These authors who have all these great ideas that just come to them out of nowhere, I want to slap them. If I have one sorta half-baked idea that might get me through one chapter, I’m lucky.Koryta: What's next--another Alex or another standalone? Give us a taste.Hamilton: The publisher really likes this return to Alex thing, so they want some more of that. More importantly, I’m finding it’s pretty great to be back in Paradise. So for the next two books, at least, it’s Alex McKnight all the way! I know I’ll take breaks again and try new things, but it’s nice to know I can always to come back to see what he’s up to next.ReviewPraise for Misery Bay:"_Misery Bay_ showcases Hamilton's dark vision and his talents as a sturdy plotter. ... Hamilton's view of the harsh, bleak landscape of winter in Michigan's Upper Peninsula will have readers grabbing their coats and gloves as the frigid air seems to seep through the pages. Misery Bay is like a visit with an old friend with whom you can't wait to catch up."--_Sun-Sentinal_"A triumphant return for McKnight. Misery Bay is as good as the previous ones in this critically acclaimed series. The plot is as suspenseful as they come, with lots of unpredictable twists and turns."--_The Associated Press_"Superb.... Assured prose, a thrilling plot, and a surprising, satisfying conclusion make this a winner."--_Publishers Weekly _(starred review)"Hamilton's prose is straight and clean, as devoid of pretense as the author's name — Steve, just Steve, with no accompanying initials. The book's complexity comes in Hamilton's gift for layers and the slow reveal."--_Seattle Times_"The best mystery novel I’ve read in a while."--John J. Miller, The National Review"I'm often asked to recommend a detective series readers might have missed.  This is it. Hamilton has been flying under the radar with his Alex McKnight series for too long. Misery Bay will change that, I hope."--Harlan Coben"This new entry in Hamilton's Alex McKnight series is one of his best. ... You'll not put this down willingly, and when you do, you'll still be thinking about it."--_Romantic Times___ "Outstanding."--_Yahoo! Shine___ "A solid, character- and conflict-driven procedural with one of his twistier plots."--_The Boston Globe_ "Hamilton is as good as anyone out there when it comes to fast-paced dark mysteries."--_City Pulse_Praise for Steve Hamilton:“Hamilton’s compelling, vigorous prose doesn’t allow the option of taking a break.” —_Los Angeles__ Times “Steve Hamilton writes the kind of stories that manly men and tough-minded women can’t resist.” —The New York Times _"Hamilton writes tough, passionate novels.... This is crime writing at its very best.” —George Pelecanos “Hamilton gives us mysteries within mysteries as well as a hero who simply won’t be beaten down.” —_The Miami Herald _“Already one of our best writers.” —Laura Lippman “Hamilton’s prose moves us smoothly along and his characters are marvelously real.” —_Publishers Weekly “Hamilton’s prose...remains an unself-consciously terse pleasure.” —Entertainment Weekly “Hamilton... paints a rich and vivid portrait of a world where the chill in the air is often matched by that of the soul.” —The Providence Journal “Hamilton never misses a beat.” —Rocky Mountain News_"I really like his main character, Alex McKnight, and I'm ready to re-visit Paradise, Michigan."--James Patterson on North of Nowhere