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Joe L. Hensley, a former circuit court judge and lawyer, writes his series of mysteries about a detective with a similar background to his own (
Robak's Witch,
Robak's Fire) with a perfect ear for the nuances of small-time criminality. Now he and Indiana prosecutor Guy M. Townsend have caught that same voice in their first joint effort.
"I might have heard a little," a seedy little coin hustler is telling private eye Al Sears about rumors of a contract on Al's life. "I can't remember where it came from. I just heard it said around, after the story in the papers, that maybe that night at the game might not be the last time someone would try to get you. I guess it's for something bad you did. Bar talk and coin talk is that someone wants you in the grave."
Al, a former hotshot lawyer laid low by booze, is working part-time in the coin shop where he spent much of his former money. When a would-be robber of a poker game turns out to be an unsuccessful assassin, Al is forced to search through the pockets of his past for clues to who might want him dead. A glamorous ex-wife is a good suspect, likewise a couple of supposed pals. Even in the current tidal wave of alcoholic detectives, Sears has enough going for him to make a return visit worth waiting for. --Dick Adler
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From Publishers Weekly
When he hit the bottle, Memphis lawyer Al Sears lost his wife, his practice and his beloved coin collection. Now he's sober, doing a little private investigating and helping out his good pal Ralph in his coin shop. When Al and Ralph become a hit man's apparent target, Al is forced to dig into the dregs of his past to find out who wants him dead and why. Al takes a cavalier approach to his many woes and to the assorted people in his life: Judy, his icy ex-wife; Harlan, his friend, fellow coin collector and a surprisingly wealthy and powerful ex-cop; and Sue, Al's reticent new love. Near the end of the novel, when Al gets clobbered with a shovel, is force-fed a bottle of booze and wakes up drunk on a narrow ledge, readers will agree that this guy has had "cat's lives." Al's an absorbing lead, but there's a paucity of character development here, and co-authors Hensley (Robak's Witch) and Townsend don't do a whole lot with their Memphis setting either. Even so, they exhibit a lean narrative style that's appealing for its lack of pretension.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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