Review: Deus X: An August Snow Novel by Stephen Mack Jones

As Deus X: An August Snow Novel by Stephen Mack Jones begins, the former police officer August Snow is in Oslow, Norway, and far from his Detroit home. But, you do what your girlfriend asks of you and that includes helping Captain Edus “Eddie” Gofu and the Oslo Police Department with a case. Snow’s everything, Tatina Stadtmueller, and her family have connections and the good Captain is one of those connections. He is less than thrilled with Snow and his history with the Detroit PD, but accepted his help because her mother asked him to do so. Snow likes Captain Eddie and understands where the man is coming from and why.

His good deed is done and he is spending time with Tatina and her family when he gets a call from home. Sylvia, one half of his elderly neighbor tag team that includes Carmela, has had a significant heart attack and is in ICU at the hospital. She is in bad shape and he needs to get home. He does so and leaves Tatina behind.

Once back in Detroit and home amongst his people, he soon discovers Slyvia isn’t the only old friend in trouble. So too is Father Grabowski. The Franciscan priest recently retired is not doing at all well. For all intents and purposes, he is somewhat homeless and moving between rooms with various friends. He is also suddenly drinking heavily. Something strange is going on and far beyond the fact that he no longer has a job.

There is also another priest, a man named Father Petra, who seems to be around contacting various people. There seems to be no local record of him and Snow soon learns that he does not have much of a history that can be found online either. Nobody knows what is going on though his presence could be connected to Father Grabowski.

As always, August thinks of family as far more than blood ties. In his world, people he cares deeply about are family. That is Lucy, Slyvia, Carmella, and others. He can’t do much to help Sylvia other than be around as her situation is up to medical folks.

But, Father Grabowski is a far different matter. Activeky trying to help him soon leads into an often-violent case with, among other things, links to events decades ago and modern-day hitmen working on behalf of the Vatican. It is all so complicated and all so good of a read.

Deus X: An August Snow Novel is the fourth book in the August Snow series that began fittingly enough with August Snow. The gang is all here in this solidly good read. So too is Snow’s love of Detroit, cooking, and good friends. Like the other books on the series, this one is also part mystery and part thriller. Strongly recommended as is the entire series.

 

 

My digital reading copy came from Soho press by way of NetGalley. Months ago, after I was initially denied by the publisher and I had cancelled my request there only to suddenly get it in mid-October, I also received a print ARC from a good friend that wishes to remain anonymous. I ended up reading considerable portions of the book on my iPad during doctor visits which was a great way to pass the time and stay sane in waiting rooms.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2023

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Dead of Winter by Stephen Mack Jones

I loved Loren Estleman’s series of seven historical mysteries set in Detroit. Whiskey River (Bantam, 1990), describing the raucous Detroit underworld during Prohibition, is on my list of all-time favorite pieces of crime fiction. Stephen Mack Jones took me back to present-day Detroit, although some things like corrupt local politicians never change. His protagonist August Snow is a former cop who lives in his childhood home where he fiercely protects the working-class neighborhood from drug pushers and attempts to exploit the disadvantaged residents.

In Snow’s third adventure Dead of Winter (Soho Crime, 2021), he’s approached by Ronaldo Ochoa, the owner of the Mexican food factory where Snow’s mother worked all her life, to ask him to buy the company. Ochoa is being pressured to sell by a Mr. Sloane who Ochoa fears will tear the buildings down, taking away the jobs of his employees. Snow doesn’t see himself as a purveyor of tortillas but he doesn’t like the way Ochoa is being treated so he agrees to look into Mr. Sloane’s plans. He finds smoke and shadows instead of a clear proposal of land ownership and intended usage with complaisant local officials prepared to look the other way for the right price. In no time his interest in the matter is noted and attempts to discourage it quickly escalate to hoodlums from New Jersey who specialize in removing obstacles.

While unofficial private investigators, shady land developers, and crooked politicians are nothing new, Snow offers a fresh spin on all three. His friends and neighbors are endearing, some of the strongest supporting characters I have seen for awhile. Amid the flying bullets and falling bodies, I was struck by the polished, visually arresting writing. The scene where Snow dies and meets his parents again is an entertaining and original take on the afterlife.

Like the relentless throb of a toothache the issue of race dominates the story. Skin color and associated social inequities overtly drive the behavior of many of the characters, reflecting the current depressing reality. Recommended.

Booklist Starred Review. New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, Booklist Top 10 Crime Novel of the Year, 2022 Michigan Notable Book.

 

·         Publisher: ‎Soho Crime (May 4, 2021)

·         Language: ‎English

·         Hardcover: ‎312 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎1641291028

·         ISBN-13: ‎978-1641291026 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Review: Dead of Winter: A Novel by Stephen Mack Jones

Dead of Winter: A Novel by Stephen Mack Jones reflects the way things are changing in local neighborhoods all across the United States. Places that were ignored for years and residents were left to fend for themselves are now the cool place to be and rehabbers and others are snapping up properties. Some homes are rehabbed and put back on the market for double or more the purchase price. In other cases, long time neighborhood fixtures are purchased, bulldozed, and replace with whatever is trendy at the moment.

 

That is apparently the fate in mind of some for Authentico foods owned by Mr. Ochoa in Mexicantown. What started as a mom-and-pop small store front grew over the decades into a major supply house for the Midwest that catered to restaurants and more. The recipes for tortillas, salsas, and queso came from Ochoa family who never forgot they were part of the neighborhood. In good times and very bad times, Authentico Foods and the Ochoa family took care of their neighbors. Mr. Snow's mom worked for him and rose up the ranks at the company. So, when Mr. Ochoa wants a meeting with August Snow, his mom passes the word, and the former cop goes to the meeting.

 

Mr. Ochoa is dying thanks to cancer and is trying to make things right for folks after he passes. He wants Snow to buy the company. While Snow could do so because of the settlement with the city of Detroit that paid him millions, he does not know a thing about running such a company. He does not want to buy the company, but as the meeting continues it becomes clear that Mr. Ochoa is in a squeeze and not just because of the cancer.

 

Some sort of real estate speculator who only goes by “Mr. Sloan” is pushing hard for him to sell. Allegedly he is working on behalf of the wealthy Vic Bronson who made his fortune in adjustable-rate mortgages and balloon payments when the housing market was crazy two decades ago. Apparently, the plan is fire everyone, demolish the place, and build some sort of ethnic mall with all the culturally appropriated trappings, put some high-end apartments on the floor above the shops, and slap a cheesy name on the place. All Mr. Ochoa wants is to protect what he has built and keep his workers employed so they have jobs after he dies. To make that happen, he is willing to sell the company for a lot less money.

 

Snow is still very reluctant to get involved until he learns that as part of the initial negotiating offer by Sloan, a piece of blackmail was given to the family. The loan shark and a few other things, Marcus “Duke” Ducane, is involved. Many decades ago, Mr. Ochoa had business dealings with him. The involvement of Duke Ducane makes things very personal as Snow put an end to his criminal enterprise as a young Detroit cop. Duke did five years at a minimum-security prison, got out, and now runs a high-end recording studio in a Detroit Suburb. The business is supposedly legit. In Snow’s mind, it is probably more likely to be crooked and better hidden thanks to Duke Ducane’s time inside with his companions from the banking and investment world.

 

A visit by Snow to Duke Ducane as well as some other activities soon results in a counter response and things quickly escalate in Dead of Winter: A Novel by Stephen Mack Jones.

 

Social commentary has always been part of the fabric of the series. Some of the fact-based societal observations in this fast-moving mystery read are sure to tick off some folks. They may even stop some folks from reading the book. That would be a shame as, if they do, they will miss a very enjoyable and intense read that features a complicated mystery and more. While there are references to earlier events in the preceding books, those references are fairly brief in nature and background, thus making this book one could easily read if new to the series.

 

Dead of Winter: A Novel, as are the preceding books, is highly recommended.

 

The preceding books and my reviews: 

August Snow (April 2018)

Lives Laid Away (February 2019) 

 

  

Dead of Winter

Stephen Mack Jones

SoHo Press

https://sohopress.com/books/dead-of-winter/

ASIN: B089S6NPCY

May 2021

eBook (also available in print and audio formats)

302 Pages 

 

While I was on hold for the print copy, the eBook version became available at my local library system. Once again, Scott made the magic happen and got technology to work for this reader.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021

Crime Watch Review: AUGUST SNOW by Stephen Mack Jones --AUDIO VERSION

Crime Watch: Review: AUGUST SNOW: AUGUST SNOW by Stephen Mack Jones (Soho Press, 2017, Recorded Books, 2020), narrated by Luis Moreno Reviewed by Craig Sisterson August Snow,...

Review: Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones

It has been a few months since the events in August Snow and it is dark times in the “Mexicantown” area of Detroit. ICE agents in their blacked out Chevy Suburbans are rolling through the area, especially at night, going after anyone and everyone. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are following the unofficial motto favored by the locals – “If it is brown, lock it down.” (Page 2)

While they go around putting fear in the hearts of everyone by their presence, real crime still happens in the city of Detroit. It is June and that means stifling heat and humidity and the climate of fear felt by so many is not helping things. Then there is a recent suicide that was actually way more than the tragic end of a life.

A young woman plunged head first into the Detroit River from the Ambassador Bridge and did not survive the encounter. Snow’s contact in the Wayne County Coroner’s office, Dr. James Robert “Bobby” Falconi is haunted by her case. One that is going to go nowhere as no record of her exists and the authorities, thanks to massive budget cuts, don’t have the personnel or resources to spend the time to find out who she is or what happened to her. Far easier to just call it a suicide by a Jane Doe and close the case.

Simpler, but not right.

The dead woman is Hispanic and Bobbi hopes that somebody August Snow knows, and he knows many folks in all walks of life, will put a name to her. With a name there should be a way to find her family. Loved ones who have no idea where she is at and should be there to lay her down at her final resting place. Bobbi is very upset by the case and August quickly agrees to look into things and try to identify her.

Finding out her name and who she is was the easy part. Dealing with what the young woman was facing in the days and hours until she jumped is a much bigger and far more dangerous problem in Lives Laid Away by Stephen Mack Jones.

Using the always present topics of racism, immigration, human trafficking, and more, award winning author Stephen Mack Jones has crafted a superb sequel to his debut mystery, August Snow. One could easily toss around the terms “ripped from the headlines” and “inspired by true events” and one would not be wrong though one would be simplistic. While those concepts and ideas are background in the read, the book is far more complicated than a drama of the week. While dealing with such subjects, Lives Laid Away can’t help but contain a few accurate observations about the current political climate of the country, the positive aspects of immigration, as well as the lives of those who, for whatever reason, live in the shadows providing services while asking nothing more than to be left alone. Those fact driven details, all of which serve to conflict with the conservative point of view regarding immigration and immigration policy, serve as nuanced background to a very complex mystery.

A very complex mystery that is built on a complicated main character, a cast of richly drawn secondary characters, and a multilayered backstory for nearly everyone in the book that continues the series as a whole.  Like any good series it is always best to read in order. Such is the case here where Lives Laid Away not only builds on the events in August Snow, such evets are frequently referenced throughout the book.

If I was one of those people who ranked their favorite books of the year, August Snow would have easily made my top five if not the number one spot. Lives Laid Away is right there with the first book. 

My review of August Snow from last April can be found here.

Lives Laid Away
Stephen Mack Jones

Soho Press

http://www.sohocrime.com

ISBN# 978-1-61695-959-3

January 2019

Hardback (also available in eBook and audio formats)

312 Pages

$26.95

Copy provided by the good folks of the Lochwood Branch of the Dallas Public Library.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2019

Stephen Mack Jones: LIVES LAID AWAY (Hardcover on sale January 8, 2019)

August Snow was an incredible book and I tried to explain that in my review. LIVES LAID AWAY is book two in the series and you can read the synopsis here.

Review: August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones

With twelve million dollars in the bank and after a year sabbatical overseas, August Snow has  returned home to the house he grew up in the “Mexicantown” area of Detroit Michigan. The old neighborhood, much like the rest of Detroit, has taken a beating and is struggling to survive. August Snow has do ne his part by putting some of the money he won from the city after his wrongful termination from the police force into his house as well as some of the neighboring houses. The son of an African-American father and a Mexican- American mother, August Snow is trying to rebuild his life and finally come to terms with his past.

While August Snow is back and very quietly minding his own business, some welcome his presence and many others do not. One of those that welcomes August Snow back is Captain Ray Danbury of the Detroit Police Department. One of a very few friends on the force, Danbury is acting as a messenger for a wealthy widow by the name of Eleanore Paget.

Eleanore Paget wants August Snow and reached out to her numerous contacts to spread the word. She has been difficult in the way only the rich can. It isn’t long before August Snow is out at her expansive estate at Grose Point. It isn’t the first time he has been at her home and that ties into the reason she wants him now.

Owner of a private wealth management and investment bank, Titan Investment Securities Group which dates back to the late 1800s where her great great grandfather started it, she is sure something is wrong. She can’t provide actual details other than a sense she is being frozen out by the CEO, the board, and other parties. Even though August Snow is not licensed as a private investigator, she wants his help and is not pleased when she does not instantly get it. While he can look at a few things for her, there is not much he can do.

Within hours she is dead and her name is added to the long list of regrets in the life of August Snow. He also knows that her death certainly was not a suicide. He begins to investigate and soon enters into a modern day war zone hotter than anything he saw in combat overseas.

August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones is an incredible read. Much like Down The River Unto The Sea by Walter Mosley, inherent racism is a dominating character at work throughout the book as is the consequences of serving on a police force and the loss of a career and that legacy. At the same time in August Snow the power of wealth and what it can do for good and evil is also a major point of the book.

At it is heart, the book is part thriller, part mystery, and part crime fiction. The ratios of those parts change a bit from page to page and chapter to chapter as author Stephen Mack Jones crafts a read that is very hard to put down. The result is an often intense read that blends in relevant social commentary while not slowing down a bit.

Simply put, August Snow, by Stephen Mack Jones, is one amazing read and highly recommended.

I had never heard of this book until I recently read an excellent review of it by David Nemeth. You should read his review and check out his other offerings at his Unlawful Acts website.

August Snow
Stephen Mack Jones

Soho Press

http://www.sohocrime.com

ISBN# 978-1-61695-718-6

February 2017

Hardback (also available in eBook, paperback, and audio formats)

320 Pages

$25.95

Copy provided by the good folks of the Lochwood Branch of the Dallas Public Library.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2018

Unlawful Acts: August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones

Unlawful Acts: August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones