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Trigger City - Review

The Hungry Detective is closing in on two years of blogging. I started this blog because I wanted to involve myself in the 'wonder' that is Crime Fiction.

The secret reason I started this blog is(...clears throat, leans in, and whispers his Old Grand-Dad breath into your ear...) I wanted free books! Not the most high-minded of ideals, but honesty should be valued for something, right?

So I got my first 'free' book a few weeks ago. Trigger City by Sean Chercover. Mr. Chercover was kind enough to send me an ARC. Cheers to you Sean. I owe you a moderately priced beverage of your choice at next week's Baltimore B'Con.

And oh, the book is fantastic. Trigger City continues the adventures of Chicago PI, Ray Dudgeon. Big City, Bad Blood was the first in this series and if you have been paying attention that books is up for a bunch of awards. I hope it snags a couple of them. Trigger City is the second in the series and is just as good if not better. Wonderfully paced, I stretched out the reading of this book to almost a week. I just did not want it to end. Mr. Chercover has received this comparison before, but his work is reminiscent of Michael Connelly around the time of The Concrete Blonde and The Last Coyote, particularly The Last Coyote. When I think about that book I remember the overwhelming sense of sadness that permeates the story.

That sense of sadness is here in Trigger City, and it is wonderful. The sense of loss and the sense of things that never will be is heartbreaking in Trigger City. As a reader I will carry these 'fictional' events and people with me for a long time, and that is something truly special. The 'dead body' of most crime fiction is only the means to start off the action. Here, with Trigger City, death hangs over this book reminding you that with its arrival something is irrevocably lost. Only the reader is richer for its coming. This is the best book of the year.

Trigger City will be in stores, just ten days from now. My fingers are crossed that there will be a copy or two available in Baltimore.
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