When Isaac Richmond, a retired army colonel, asks Chicago PI Ray Dudgeon to look into his daughter's murder, Dudgeon, who's still recovering from the injuries he sustained in Big City, Bad Blood, reluctantly agrees to take the $50,000 case in this engrossing follow-up. Joan Richmond's death looks straightforward: a deranged co-worker, Steven Zhang, shot her in her home and then committed suicide. Never one to accept the simplest answer, Dudgeon starts digging and discovers that Joan's former employer was Hawk River, a military contract company under congressional investigation. Steve's widow soon reveals her husband's ties to China, and Dudgeon realizes that Joan's murder could lead back to both the Department of Homeland Security and some ruthless military contractors. Himself a former PI, Chercover brings a crackling authenticity to Dudgeon, paying homage to the noir masters while creating a doggedly stubborn new hero all his own. (Oct.)
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If a crime thriller can be described as both gritty and laid-back, then Chercover would be the name on the cover. In this follow-up to Big City, Bad Blood, newspaperman-turned-PI Ray Dudgeon is still recovering from the events of his last big case. Suffering physical pain from an injured shoulder that needs surgery and mental pain from flashbacks to the torture he endured, Ray nevertheless maintains his cool, wisecracking demeanor. When he's offered a lot of money to investigate what everyone agrees is an open-and-shut murder/suicide, Ray tries to do the right thing and turn his client down. But financial pressures and his own curiosity soon have him involved in a case that puts private contractors (think Blackwater), Homeland Security, and black ops agents on his tail. Though the subject matter is heavy (and timely), Chercover maintains a fast pace throughout. And the likable but always tough Dudgeon is a worthy successor to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch and Robert Crais's Elvis Cole. Recommended for all public libraries.
—Jane Jorgenson
A Chicago private eye who signs on to help a grieving father learns that grief can be complicated. When Joan Richmond, 44, opens her apartment door to her friend and business associate Steven Zhang, he shoots her, then himself, leaving behind a signed confession. Exactly why he killed her is a matter of conjecture, though many testify that before the murder Zhang had been behaving erratically, like a man whose mind had suddenly broken under some impossible burden. Colonel Isaac Richmond asks private eye Ray Dudgeon (Big City, Bad Blood, 2007) to investigate his daughter's murder, but Ray resists at first. Investigate what? he asks. How could the facts of the case be any more cut and dried? Not until the bereaved father offers him $50,000 "to bring me the truth of Joan's death" does Ray's resistance crumble, partly because he needs the money, partly because he understands that facts are only facts, and truth transcends them. He begins a search that takes him to unexpected places, hidden corridors of power where he encounters dark and dangerous conspiracies. Along the way, he discovers that truth can be elusive and that sorrow too is a many-sided thing. An engaging, Marlowe-like hero, but Chercover's villains are mostly slick, one-dimensional operators on behalf of a malevolent government, and we've seen their like before, in and outside the pages of fiction. Agent: Denise Marcil/Denise Marcil Literary Agency
Trigger City . . . grabs you hard on the first page and doesn’t let go, even after you’ve closed the book.
Taut, hair-raising and ultimately enriching. You will not be disappointed.
Trigger City will grip you from start to end…another masterful stroke from the pen of Sean Chercover.
The writing is superb—dark poetry and violence in a seamless narrative of love, pain and redemption. Trigger City will break your heart in ways you never imagined.
Trigger City is a compelling story . . . sharp, translucent, and original—Sean Chercover seems incapable of penning a cliché.
Highly entertaining....Chercover is a colorful, quotable writer.
Plenty of exciting and scary action....Could be the first of a new age of crime fiction....[Chercover] seems on his way to becoming the Ross Macdonald of his time, close to rubbing shoulders with Dashiell Hammett in the Crime Writers’ Hall of Fame.
Highly entertaining....Chercover is a colorful, quotable writer.
Plenty of exciting and scary action....Could be the first of a new age of crime fiction....[Chercover] seems on his way to becoming the Ross Macdonald of his time, close to rubbing shoulders with Dashiell Hammett in the Crime Writers’ Hall of Fame.
Packed with action and heart-breaking moments of truth.
A riveting and terrifying novel—a true thriller in every sense of the word. . . . Masterful.
A riveting and terrifying novel—a true thriller in every sense of the word. . . . Masterful.” — Sara Paretsky, author of Burning Kansas and Fire Sale
“Packed with action and heart-breaking moments of truth.” — Robert Crais, author of The Watchman
“Taut, hair-raising and ultimately enriching. You will not be disappointed.” — Andrew Gross, author of The Blue Zone and The Dark Tide
“The writing is superb—dark poetry and violence in a seamless narrative of love, pain and redemption. Trigger City will break your heart in ways you never imagined.” — Ken Bruen, author of Priest and The Guards
“Trigger City . . . grabs you hard on the first page and doesn’t let go, even after you’ve closed the book.” — Tasha Alexander, author of A Fatal Waltz
“Trigger City is a compelling story . . . sharp, translucent, and original—Sean Chercover seems incapable of penning a cliché.” — Loren D. Estleman, author of Frames
“Trigger City will grip you from start to end…another masterful stroke from the pen of Sean Chercover.” — The Strand Magazine
“Plenty of exciting and scary action....Could be the first of a new age of crime fiction....[Chercover] seems on his way to becoming the Ross Macdonald of his time, close to rubbing shoulders with Dashiell Hammett in the Crime Writers’ Hall of Fame.” — Chicago Tribune
“Highly entertaining....Chercover is a colorful, quotable writer.” — Washington Post
