Double Dead

by Gary Hardwick

Overview

Jesse King is an assistant district attorney in Detroit who takes comfort in taking dangerous criminals off the streets. When Detroit's mayor, Harris Yancy, is murdered, authorities implicate his mistress, Ramona Blake. Ramona had been with Yancy before he died and, worse, fled the scene with Yancy's locked briefcase. Enter Jesse King, who becomes convinced that Ramona is innocent and, when he launches his own investigation, is accused of Yancy's murder. While hunting the real killer, Jesse goes on the run, searching for the truth in Detroit's violence-ridden streets.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940046025088
Publisher:	Gary Hardwick
Publication date:	01/29/2013
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	477 KB

About the Author

Gary Hardwick is an author, screenwriter and award-winning director of The Brothers and Deliver Us From Eva. He lives in Southern California.

Editorial Reviews

Denizens of Detroit's underworld and power elite intersect and collide to mesmerizing effect in this taut thriller. African American prosecutor Jesse King is a man poised between two worldsthe stratosphere of ostensibly color-blind success and the raw desperation of his ghetto past. When black mayor Yancy Harris is murdered, Jesse gets second chair on the prosecution team, but he's no foolhe knows he got the job largely because of his skin color. It's a high-profile case, and initially the mayor's wife is the prime suspect, but there are things that don't add up, like rumors that Harris was reneging on his opposition to casinos in Detroit. When call girl Ramona Blake, Harris's lover, who witnessed the murder and barely escaped with her own life, is held by the police, Jesse learns about a mysterious briefcase that the mayor received before he died. Then things get out of control. A defense attorney is killed and Jesse is framed for the murder. Chased by the real killers, Jesse helps Ramona escape, and together they descend into the underworld of Detroit in search of that briefcase, which is now in the hands of a gang leader named Cane. Sharp as a knife and roller-coaster fast, with a violent climax and an army of suspects, this follow-up to Harwick's Cold Medina is dead-on about the politics and reality of race in the big city. And it's very neatly plotted. Characters planted in the first few chapters (along with Jesse's attitudes towards them) reappear during Jesse's descent into Ramona's world. Even the labored gang scenes and a predictable romance between the two principals can't take away from this gripping thriller. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Detroit's esteemed mayor, Harris Yancy, is conducting a tryst with his mistress, Ramona Blake, when two assassins stab him to death. Amazingly, Ramona manages to elude her would-be killers, taking the briefcase that Harris was carrying. Jesse King, a driven, well-respected, and scrupulous assistant prosecutor for Wayne County, is called into the case. Trying to piece together this bizarre crime is no easy task, especially when it appears that the mayor was involved in some shaky transactions. Opposing Jesse in the legal battle is his ruthless ex-lover, Karen Blake. When Jesse is framed for Karen's brutal murder, he teams up with Ramona, and the unlikely duo take to the streets of Detroit in an effort to save their lives and clear their names. Hardwick (Cold Medina, Dutton, 1996) does an admirable job of creating a vivid picture of big-city politics and street crime, and this exciting, well-written novel is recommended for most public libraries.Maria A. Perez-Stable, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo

Library Journal

Hardwick fulfills the promise of his first novel (Cold Medina, 1996) with a chilly tale of a black district attorney on the run in Detroit's back alleys. When Harris Yancy, Motown's popular mayor, is knifed to death at the end of an evening with Ramona Lake, his part-time mistress, she breaks away from two ski-masked assassins, carrying the small black suitcase with which she fought them off. Picked up as the designated fall gal in the high-profile killing, Mona tells her story to Jesse King, an up-and-coming star in the prosecutor's office. Against the wishes of his superiors, Jesse launches a quiet investigation that convinces him Mona is innocent. Before he can get her off the hook, however, Jesse himself is framed for murder. Breaking Mona out of the hospital ward where she's being detained, he takes it on the lam in search of the suitcase whose contents may clear them both. Unsure where to turn, Jesse follows Mona's lead. To his chagrin, the street-smart Mona reestablishes contact with her sometime homies, a vicious gang (the Nasty Girls) that's trying to gain a piece of the inner-city drug action. All but lost in the bleak, nihilistic ghetto world of his youth, Jesse stays in touch with a loyal cop who keeps him up to date on behind-the-scenes maneuverings in the political vacuum created by Yancy's untimely demise. With a line on mayoral wannabes and the rival interests that are bankrolling them, he has a better idea of who might be responsible for the slayings. Before Jesse can act on these insights, though, he's not only got to recover the elusive suitcase but elude well-informed hit men, survive the lawless jungle of the 'hood, and bring Mona back alive to corroborate hisstory. Gritty urban fare with a welcome sense of irony—and an appreciation of how little separates a community's powerbrokers from its criminal classes.

Kirkus Reviews