Download or read book Housewrights written by Art Corriveau and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-06-25 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in a small Vermont town in the early decades of the twentieth century, Housewrights tells the story of Lily Willard, the town librarian, and her relationship with Oren and Ian Pritchard, housewrights who roam New England building houses for others though they themselves are homeless. Lily first meets the twins when they are children, and the boys arrive with their father to build Lily's family a new farmhouse. Ten years later, Oren returns for Lily. He asks her to marry him. She agrees, if he will settle down-for the first time in his life. Always lurking, though, is the question of Ian, off fighting the Great War. But when he returns, shell-shocked and wounded, Lily welcomes him into their home. Eyebrows are raised only silently at this unusual household, until one evening at the Grange Hall dance the three take a heady, impetuous waltz together-with practically the entire town watching. Rich in detail and emotion, this unforgettable novel marks the debut of a singular storyteller who writes with extraordinary beauty, depth, and clarity.

Download or read book A Hard Ticket Home written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2004-05-04 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he's willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn't), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago. Mac begins combing the backstreets of the Twin Cities, tracking down Jamie's last known associates. He starts with the expected pimps and drug dealers, but the path leads surprisingly to some of the Cities' most respected businessmen, as well as a few characters far more unsavory than the street hustlers he anticipated. As bullets fly and bodies drop, Mac persists, only to find that what he's looking for, and why, are not exactly what he'd imagined. David Housewright's uncanny ability to turn the Twin Cities into an exotic, brooding backdrop for noir fiction, and his winning, witty hero Rushmore McKenzie, serve as a wicked one-two punch in A Hard Ticket Home, a series debut that reinforces Housewright's well-earned reputation as one of crime fiction's rising stars.

Download or read book Tin City written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2005-05-01 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mac McKenzie is rich. So rich that he's left his job as a Twin Cities police officer and spends his time doing favors large and small for friends. So when an old Marine buddy of his father's calls with a request Mac takes the time to help him out. And it is one of the stranger favors he's ever been asked: the elderly Mr. Mosley, a beekeeper, wants Mac to find out why his bees are suddenly dying in droves. Mac does some digging and before long turns up a hornet's nest of trouble in the person of Frank Crosetti, a new neighbor on the property abutting Mosley's bees. What started out as an innocent investigation into some unregulated pesticide quickly turns lethal. Crosetti sticks around long enough to make some very specific threats, then disappears into the wind leaving behind a vicious rape, a lifeless body, and a very angry McKenzie bursting for someone to blame. With only the faintest of trails to follow and a suspicious group of federal agents gunning for him, Mac dives underground, taking only a stash of cash and a small arsenal with him on his undercover mission. Before long Mac's deep in the forgotten corners of Minneapolis sniffing for any sign of Crosetti, unable to rest until he gets results. Combining engaging humor and wit with action-packed storytelling, Edgar Winner David Housewright's second Mac McKenzie novel is clever, compelling, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Download or read book Jelly s Gold written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2009-05-12 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rushmore McKenzie, a retired St. Paul policeman and unexpected millionaire, often works as an unlicensed P.I., doing favors as it suits him. When graduate students Ivy Flynn and Josh Berglund show up with a story about $8 million in missing stolen gold from the ‘30s, McKenzie is intrigued. In the early 20th century, St. Paul, Minnesota was an open city —a place where gangsters could come and stay unmolested by the local authorities. Frank "Jelly" Nash was suspected of masterminding a daring robbery of gold bars in 1933, but, before he could unload it, he was killed in the Kansas City Massacre. His gold, they believe, is still somewhere in St. Paul. But they aren't the only ones looking. So are a couple of two-bit thugs, a woman named Heavenly, a local big-wig, and others. When Berglund is shot dead outside of Ivy's apartment, the treasure hunt turns unexpectedly deadly. In this hard-boiled mystery from David Housewright, Mac McKenzie is looking for more than a legendary stash from seventy-five years ago---he's looking for a killer and the long hidden truth behind Jelly's gold.

Download or read book What Doesn t Kill Us written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In David Housewright's next novel featuring the beloved Rushmore McKenzie What Doesn't Kill Us—McKenzie has been shot and lies in a coma while the police and his friends desperately try to find out what he was doing and who tried to kill him. Rushmore McKenzie, former St. Paul police detective and unexpected millionaire, does the occasional, unofficial private detective work—mostly favors for friends. He's faced kidnappers, domestic terrorists, art thieves, among others, and had a hand in solving some of the most perplexing mysteries of the Twin Cities. But this time, his prodigious luck and intuition may have finally failed him: He was shot in the back by an unknown assailant and lies in a coma. His childhood friend, Lt. Bobby Dunston of the St. Paul Police Department, assigns his best detective to the case while other figures—on both sides of the law—pursue the truth. What was McKenzie investigating, what did he learn that so threatened someone that they tried to kill him? What do a sketchy bar in the wrong part of town, the area's prominent tech millionaire family, drug dealers, investment bankers, and a mysterious woman who left an unknown package for McKenzie all have in common? As time slowly begins to run out, the answer to those questions might be what stands between life and death.

Download or read book The Last Kind Word written by David Housewright and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-06-04 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Millionaire and unlicensed P.I. Rushmore McKenzie agrees to go undercover to help the ATF track a cache of stolen gunsNafter all, what could possibly go wrong?

Download or read book Dead Boyfriends written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2007-05-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Right up until they put him in jail, McKenzie thought the cops were kidding. After all, he did them a favor by stopping a rookie cop from roughing up a distraught woman at a murder scene. But the next thing Mac knows he's in jail, missing an important date with his girlfriend and reliving nightmares he thought he'd finally left behind – and he's vowing payback for all of it. If that means sticking his nose into a crime investigation, well, he's done it before. Only, what appears to be a straightforward case of a cheating boyfriend, his alcoholic girlfriend and an opportune baseball bat proves far more complicated than the police are willing to accept. More disconcerting, as he investigates, Mac finds himself again fighting the influence of a shadowy figure who controls more of what goes on in the Twin Cities than a rational voter would believe. And then there are the unidentified thugs who kill a witness and rough up him and his female lawyer-ally. Soon Mac realizes that the truth of this sordid crime may be as hard to find – and as hard to live with – as the justice he seeks.

Download or read book From the Grave written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A past case comes back to haunt Twin Cities P.I. McKenzie as a stolen sum of money threatens to resurface in From the Grave, the next mystery in David Housewright’s award-winning series. Once a police detective in St. Paul, Minnesota, Rushmore McKenzie became an unlikely millionaire and an occasional unlicensed private investigator, doing favors for friends. But this time, he finds himself in dire need of working on his own behalf. His dear friend and first love Shelby Dunston attends a public reading by a psychic medium with the hope of connecting with her grandfather one final time. Instead, she hears McKenzie’s name spoken by the psychic in connection with a huge sum of stolen—and missing—money. Caught in a world of psychic mediums, with a man from his past with a stake in the future, and more than one party willing to go to great and deadly lengths to get involved, McKenzie must figure out just how much he’s willing to believe—like his life depends on it—before everything takes a much darker turn.

Download or read book Madman on a Drum written by David Housewright and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The secret behind a kidnapping and a murder lies hidden in McKenzie's own difficult past, in the latest work from the Edgar Award-winning author.

Download or read book Something Wicked written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In David Housewright's next hardboiled mystery Something Wicked, Rushmore McKenzie, who promised to retire after his last nearly-fatal case, gets talked into doing an old friend a favor involving a castle, a family fighting over an inheritance, and at least one mysterious death. Rushmore McKenzie was a detective with the St. Paul, Minnesota PD until unlikely events made him first a millionaire and then a retiree. Since then, he's been an occasional unofficial private investigator - looking into things for friends and friends of friends - until his most recent case put him into a coma and nearly into a coffin. Now, at the insistence of his better half Nina Truhler, he is again retired. That is, until a friend of Nina finds herself in dire straights and in desperate need of a favor. Jenness Crawford's grandmother owned the family castle - a nineteenth century castle that has been operating as a hotel and resort for over a hundred years. Since her grandmother's death, the heirs have been squabbling over what to do with it. Some want to keep it in the family and running as a hotel. Some want to sell it and reap the millions a developer will pay for it. And Jenness is convinced that someone - probably in the latter group - killed her grandmother. A conclusion with which the police do not agree. Now McKenzie finds himself back in action, trapped in a castle filled with feuding relatives with conflicting agendas, long serving retainers, and a possible murderer. And if McKenzie makes one wrong move, it could be lights out.

Download or read book Curse of the Jade Lily written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stolen gem with a tragic history, a curse and a million dollar ransom is Mac McKenzie's latest case, in David Housewright's Curse of the Jade Lily Several years ago, Rushmore McKenzie became an unexpected millionaire and set about doing not much of anything. Now, showing up at his doorstep is the insurance company that paid the settlement that made him rich—and they want a favor. Someone has stolen a very expensive gem from a local art museum and is willing to ransom it back. The only condition is that McKenzie has to be the go between. And this is no ordinary gem—it is a jade with a history going back to the Qing Dynasty and a reputed curse that stories claim has ruined or killed everyone who has ever owned it. McKenzie agrees to help but what starts out as a simple ransom quickly becomes complicated. Suddenly other parties—including the State Department and a mysterious woman named Heavenly—start showing up, wanting McKenzie to turn over the gem to them. When the murdered body of on of the thieves turns up in a snow drift, it looks like the cursed Jade Lily has claimed its latest victim. And there may well be more to follow...

Download or read book Dead Man s Mistress written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of missing property takes a darker turn near Lake Superior in Dead Man’s Mistress, the next mystery in David Housewright’s award-winning McKenzie series. Louise Wykoff is arguably the most recognizable woman living in Minnesota, known for her presence in over one hundred paintings by the late and brilliant Randolph McInnis. Louise, known better as “That Wykoff Woman,” was just a young apprentice when her intimate representation and the fact of the McInnis’s marriage caused rumors to fly—and Louise to hide away for decades. All of McInnis's paintings are in museums or known private collections, until Louise confesses to having three more that no one has ever heard of—and now they've been stolen. Rushmore McKenzie, an occasional unlicensed private investigator, agrees to look into the theft. As he investigates, following clues that appear far too straightforward, he finds himself on the wrong side of the bars wondering if the trail might be deeper and darker than he’s been led to believe. Hours away from St. Paul, deep in the nature of Grand Marais, the truth seems murkier—and deadlier—than usual.

Download or read book First Kill the Lawyers written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: P.I. Holland Taylor returns in David Housewright’s Edgar Award-winning series with First, Kill the Lawyers, where Taylor is hired to recover stolen files before they are leaked, ruining more than just the careers of five local lawyers. Five prominent attorneys in Minneapolis have had their computer systems hacked and very sensitive case files stolen. Those attorneys are then contacted by an association of local whistleblowers known as NIMN and are quietly alerted that they have received those documents from an anonymous source. If those files are released, then not only will those lawyers be ruined, but it might even destroy the integrity of the entire Minnesota legal system. This group of lawyers turns to Private Investigator Holland Taylor with a simple directive: stop the disclosure any way you can. But while the directive is simple, the case is not. To find the missing files and the person responsible, Holland must first dive into the five cases covered in the files—divorce, bribery, class action, rape, and murder. While Taylor is untangling the associates and connections between the cases and families affected, things take another mysterious turn and the time before the files are released is running out. As the situation becomes more threatening, Holland Taylor is trapped in the middle of what is legal and what is ethical—between right, wrong, and deadly.

Download or read book Unidentified Woman 15 written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During one of the first heavy snows of the winter, on the Interstate outside the Twin Cities, Rushmore McKenzie is behind a truck behaving erratically when the man in the truck bed dumps a body out onto the road, right in front of McKenzie's car. McKenzie avoids hitting the body, a bound woman who is just barely alive, but his stopped car in the middle of the road starts a chain of accidents, resulting in a thirty-seven car pile-up. By the time the time the police arrive, and the EMTs and ambulances have taken care of the immediate injuries, the truck is long gone. The injured woman awakens with no memories—not of the accident, not of anything—and is labeled by the police as Unidentified Woman #15. With few leads, the detective in charge, McKenzie's former partner and old friend Bobby Dunston, turns to McKenzie for a favor. Now McKenzie has to try to identify the grievously injured woman, find out who tied her up and dumped on the freeway to die. And why.

Download or read book The Devil May Care written by David Housewright and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Riley Brodin is the granddaughter of Walter Muehlenhaus—a man as rich, powerful, and connected as anyone since the days of J. P. Morgan. Despite her family's connections, it's McKenzie she reaches out to when her relatively new boyfriend goes missing. Despite his reservations about getting involved with the Muehlenhaus family—again—Mac McKenzie agrees to look for one Juan Carlos Navarre. What he finds, though, is a man who appears to be a ghost. The house—mansion, really—he told Riley he owned is actually a rental, barely lived in and practically devoid of personal effects. The restaurant he claimed to own is owned by another and Navarre merely an investor. He apparently has no friends, no traceable past, and McKenzie isn't the only one looking for him. Whoever Juan Carlos Navarre is and wherever he's gone, the one thing that is clear is that he's trouble, and is perhaps someone—as Riley's family makes clear—better out of the picture. Unfortunately for everyone, McKenzie likes trouble and trouble likes him, in The Devil May Care by David Housewright.

Download or read book Pretty Girl Gone written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rushmore "Mac" McKenzie has a lot of old girlfriends, but only one went on to marry the current governor of the state of Minnesota. And only one is calling him with a desperate request to meet in secret. First Lady Lindsay Barrett is carrying an anonymous e-mail that contains the makings of an ugly rumor about her husband, the man about to run for higher office---perhaps even the highest office. Someone says they have evidence that Jack Barrett killed his high school sweetheart. Lindsay says it's an outright lie, but the truth lies buried decades in the past in the small town where the governor grew up. Of course, Mac, who's richer than he needs to be and always has plenty of time on his hands, is in the business of handling such matters for his friends. So he packs up and drives straight into the governor's past with the brilliantly conceived plan to poke around and see if he can stir up a little information. He's soon got goons of all sorts poking him back, including a nasty little group of political movers and shakers who aren't above kidnapping and murder to protect their interests. It's clear that his little plan has stirred up nothing but trouble. With no choice but to stick to it, he continues shifting through a complex web of interlocking secrets and lies, some decades old and some rooted violently in the present day. It's up to Mac to sort truth from untruth before a vicious rumor becomes a political nightmare---or worse, before the "outright lie" is proved a solid, irrefutable fact.

Download or read book Like to Die written by David Housewright and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2018-06-19 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A seemingly simple investigation, done as a favor for a friend, takes McKenzie down a dark and twisted path in Like to Die, the next mystery in David Housewright’s award-winning series. Once a police detective in St. Paul, Minnesota, Rushmore McKenzie has become an unlikely millionaire and an occasional unlicensed private investigator, doing favors for friends. The favor, this time, is for a friend of a friend—Erin Peterson, a local business person and owner of a growing food company called Salsa Girl. Someone seems to have a beef with her: the outside locks on her factory having been systematically filled with superglue. But for some reason, Erin doesn’t want to report this harassment to the police. As a favor to his poker buddy and hockey teammate Ian, McKenzie agrees to stop by and chat with Erin. At first Erin denies there's anything going on and then, when the harassment escalates and threatens her business, she also asks for McKenzie's help. The further McKenzie digs into the situation, the more complicated—and deadly—it becomes. And somewhere, in the middle of it all, is Erin, playing all sides against the middle, leading McKenzie to wonder if you ever really know who your friends are.