Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones

First Line: Her secret ingredient was nutmeg.

Detroit ex-cop August Snow is given the photo of a young Hispanic woman whose body was found in the Detroit River in hopes that someone in Snow's home turf of Mexicantown will recognize her. Someone does. The victim is Isadora del Torres, and she's not the only young woman to have disappeared during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid, only to turn up dead a few weeks later.

Preyed upon by the law itself, the people of Mexicantown have no one to turn to except August Snow, the son of an African-American cop and a Mexican-American artist. Snow will not stand by and watch his neighbors suffer in silence and soon finds himself on a wild ride across Detroit, visiting neo-Nazi biker dens, hip-hop recording studios, seedy nightclubs, and the social clubs of the rich.

I really enjoyed Stephen Mack Jones' August Snow and looked forward to a new book. Snow won a wrongful dismissal suit against the Detroit Police Department and the City of Detroit, and he's used the $12 million settlement to renovate the houses of Mexicantown one at a time. He's bringing his neighborhood back to life, and I really like that. From Snow's voice to the book's secondary cast, from the information about Detroit to its tone of pragmatic hopefulness, the first book really had me looking forward to the next one. Unfortunately, I wasn't particularly happy with what I found.

If your outlook on immigration-- both legal and illegal-- tends toward the conservative, you're not going to like this book. I had no problem with the book's more liberal viewpoints and having some of the people in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency be bad guys didn't bother me either. In the opening pages, Lives Laid Away was set up as Snow seeking justice for two murdered girls most law enforcement would consider throwaways. The Harry Bosch in me was rubbing my hands together in anticipation, but what followed was a disappointment.

The entire book devolved into Rambo (Snow) and sidekick loading up with weapons and heading to one shootout after another. I've never been a fan of Sylvester Stallone or the My-Gun-Blows-Bigger-Holes-in-People-than-Yours-Does school of film and fiction, so reading rapidly became a chore. So... a bit of a sophomore slump that makes me wonder if I want to read a third book in the series.

Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones

ISBN: 9781616959593

Soho Crime © 2019

Hardcover, 312 pages

Private Investigator, #2 August Snow mystery

Rating: C+

Source: the publisher 

August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones

First Line: The house is a narrow two-story, two-bedroom, redbrick Colonial with two and a half baths, hardwood floors and a small kitchen.

August Snow is the son of an African-American father and a Mexican-American mother. When he was drummed out of the Detroit Police Department by corrupt cops and city officials, he didn't take it laying down. His wrongful dismissal settlement gave him the money to move back to his old Mexicantown neighborhood and start bringing it back to life, one house at a time.

Obeying a summons to Grosse Pointe Estates, Snow learns that the wealthy Eleanore Paget wants him to investigate unusual dealings at her bank, but detective work is no longer his business, and he declines. The next day, Paget is dead-- an apparent suicide. Not buying that verdict for a second, Snow begins his own inquiry which leads him straight into a snake's den of Detroit's most dangerous criminals.

There are two main characters in Stephen Mack Jones' debut novel: the city of Detroit which was brought to its knees during the economic crisis of 2008, and ex-cop August Snow. While Jones' portrait of Detroit is powerful and memorable, it is the character of August Snow that garnered most of my attention. Snow is a man who is guided by his father's words: "We are defined by those we could have helped and chose not to." Due to his heritage, Snow is no stranger to bigotry, and it's his feeling of guilt over refusing to help rich, nasty, white Eleanore Paget that makes him investigate her death.

As he investigates, he begins to gather around him a very interesting secondary cast of characters. Snow is not only looking into a woman's death, he is also working to revive his old neighborhood, and this secondary cast helps him to achieve both goals. Neophyte drug dealer Jimmy Radmon, Frank the security guard at Paget's estate, Carlos from across the street, and the elderly Carmela and Sylvia next-door all have their parts to play, and these characters' interactions with Snow form one of the strongest parts of the book.

There are unexpected barks of laughter to be found in August Snow. This tale from a minority viewpoint is not all gloom and doom. Ultimately, it is pragmatically hopeful. I loved the story, and I loved Snow's voice-- so much so that I certainly hope I will be seeing him again in the near future.
  

August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones

ISBN: 9781616957186

Soho Crime © 2017

Hardcover, 320 pages

Noir, Standalone?

Rating: A

Source: the publisher