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Chapter One
REVIEWS |
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Jackson brings back Joe Service from the brink of death. The smooth womanizing hit man who
killed a Detroit gangleader in HIT ON THE HOUSE, and then in the sequel DEADMAN was
himself shot and left in a coma, is hiding out in the city of the Saints, Salt Lake City,
where he is trying to
recover--among other things--his memory of where he may have stashed that cash he
liberated from the mob. He has found the company of a sweet nurse, but the mob is on his
tail, as are the cops. Salt Lake City is pretty different from Detroit, but things don't
stay peaceable in Utah for long.
The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
It's a blessing ... to have Joe Service back, even if he hasn't got all his marbles yet.
From Booklist , July 19, 1996
Detective Fang Mulheisen of the Detroit Police Department is still on the trail of Joe
Service--aka Joe Humann--and Helen Sedlacek, the unlikely couple who killed a Detroit
mobster and made off with a considerable amount of the Mob's drug profits. Joe spent most
of the previous Mulheisen novel, DEADMAN (1994), in a coma, but his recovery is
progressing very well owing to the attentive care of his nurse and lover, Cate Yoder.
After convincing Cate to help him escape his hospital bed in Montana, the two travel to
the big-city environs of Salt Lake City, where Joe's slightly addled hit-man persona
places him in conflict with a gang of giant Tongan thugs. Meanwhile Mulheisen and the Mob
are also closing in on Joe, who uses Cate to help locate the true love of his life, Helen
Sedlacek, who also happens to have all the stolen money. The Mulheisen series is a quirky,
comic delight that brings to mind early Elmore Leonard. Joe and Helen are two of the most
intriguing villains in recent crime fiction; their lusty carnal relationship plays a key
role in the novel's climax, which will leave readers as satisfied as, well . . . Helen and
Joe themselves. Wonderful reading from a genre master.
Wes Lukowsky
t©1996, American Library Association. All rights reserved
From Kirkus Reviews , June 1, 1996
Will anybody ever bring avenging mob princess Helen Sedlacek and her lover, contract
killer Joe Service, to book for the murders of Detroit crime boss Carmine Busoni and Mario
Soper, the hit man sent to Butte to kill them? This installment of their continuing saga
finds them split up--Helen's cooling her heels in the Butte jail as Joe, barely recovered
from a gunshot to the head, has taken his inexperienced, willing nurse Cate Yoder to Salt
Lake City in search of the swag he dimly remembers stashing- -with Helen's nemesis,
Detroit's Det. Sgt. Fang Mulheisen (DEADMAN, 1994, etc.), still playing Achilles to her
tortoise. Helen, knowing there's no charge they can hold her on, is already dreaming of
Salt Lake City, where Joe's battling Tongan mobsters as he dreams his own dreams of
money-laundering scams starring wholesale used-car deals or wholesale hospices for AIDS
patients who can die and leave their alleged, squeaky-clean fortunes to Joe. Meantime, the
pot continues to boil merrily for Heather Bloom, foiled in her last attempt to kill Helen,
who wheedles her way into elderly rancher Grace Garland's heart as she awaits her next
shot, and for titanic Humphrey DiEbola, the new Detroit kingpin with a taste for chiles.
Jackson's six Mulheisen chronicles have created something unique: a comic soap opera in
which the murderously funny writing skewers the characters so surely that nobody can budge
an inch, unless you count dying as movement.
-- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights
reserved.
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