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The Devil Went Down to Austin
 
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The Devil Went Down to Austin [Hardcover]

Rick Riordan (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 29, 2001
Rick Riordan, triple-crown winner of the Edgar, Anthony, and Shamus Awards, has already emblazoned his name on the map of crime fiction with his Tres Navarre novels -- a fast, funny, totally hip series that blends masterful writing with richly drawn characters and nonstop action.

Now Riordan brings his P.I. Tres Navarre to the heart of Texas -- Austin -- with a fiercely original thriller that explores family ties as deep and twisted as the waterways of Lake Travis.

Tres Navarre, private eye and sometimes English professor, is hoping for a laid-back working vacation when he accepts a teaching gig at the University of Texas at Austin, even if it means shacking up for six weeks with his big brother Garrett, who calls Austin home.

Garrett Navarre -- computer programmer extraordinaire, Jimmy Buffett fanatic, and all-around eccentric -- is hoping to retire a multimillionaire thanks to a high-tech start-up company he and two buddies have launched. Garrett has bet everything from his career to the Navarre family ranch that the company will stay alive long enough to make a public stock offering, allowing him to ride the Austin high-tech boom right into the saddle of luxury.

Both Tres's and Garrett's hopes are shattered with a single gunshot. Garrett's oldest friend and business partner ends up murdered at his lakefront home -- and Garrett is the only suspect.

As Tres delves into Garrett's bizarre world to find the truth behind the murder, he comes face-to-face with the damaged relationships, violent lives, and billion-dollar schemes of a brave new high-tech world.

Among the players: a corporate takeover artist with a trail of broken enemies in his wake and an overzealous desire to make Garrett's company his own; the victim's wife, a hard-edged beauty haunted by three generations of family failure; and the head of an oil-rich clan with more power than morals and enough skeletons in the closet to man a ghost ship. Connecting them all -- the beautiful waters of Lake Travis and an unspeakable evil that lies within its depths.

A suspense novel of depth and sizzling emotional power, The Devil Went Down to Austin is Rick Riordan's most entertaining work to date.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Things are good for San Antonio middle-school teacher-cum-mystery author Rick Riordan--great, in fact. His first two outings featuring San Antonio PI and part-time English professor Tres Navarre (Big Red Tequila, The Widower's Two Step) scored Shamus, Anthony, and Edgar awards, and The Last King of Texas has been likened to the proverbial sliced bread. In The Devil Went Down to Austin, on the other hand, things stink for Tres Navarre. His paraplegic brother, Garrett, has surreptitiously mortgaged the brothers' Austin ranch to subsidize an Internet startup. One of Garrett's partners, Ruby McBride, has been making nice with a sleazy corporate-takeover maven, Matthew Peña, and Garrett's been violently feuding with his other partner and lifelong friend, Jimmy Doebler. As for Jimmy, his day started with his divorce from Ruby and ended with a shot to the head. Worse yet, Jimmy bought it in his Chevy pickup by his lakeside home, just feet away from a ranting, beach-sprawled Garrett.

All that remains for Tres to do is exonerate his brother, find the real killer (whose clue-laden e-mails alternate with Tres's narrative, delivering Texas-sized creepiness), save the ranch, and with the help of Maia Lee, a beautiful lawyer from his past, untangle a skein of Doebler family murder, misery, and hurt. Witty, sharp as glass, and plotted as well as it's written, The Devil Went Down to Austin paints a high-tech Texas laced with treachery and tequila before a cranked-up Jimmy Buffett backdrop. Expect great things, because Riordan delivers. --Michael Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

Powerful writing about a palpable evil distinguishes Edgar, Anthony and Shamus award-winner Riordan's fourth Tres Navarre novel. The tough, wisecracking PI and English professor moves himself and the action from his San Antonio base to Austin, where he expects simply to teach University of Texas students and visit with his brother, Garrett. But instead of tackling Beowulf he must tackle a different quest, a different monster. Garrett, software genius and free spirit, has launched a startup company called Techsan Security Software, with his friend Jimmy and Jimmy's wife as partners. Enter a truly nasty character who devours startup companies like Techsan, leaving a trail of ruined or dead owners in his wake. Techsan's brilliant beginnings lead to a takeover offer, while the offer's rejection leads to troubles that threaten to destroy the company and the Navarre family ranch, which Garrett has used as security. Soon one of Garrett's partners is dead, Garrett's the prime suspect and Tres is digging desperately for any foothold that will keep his brother from jail. An extremely skillful writer, Riordan manages a complicated plot without losing narrative force. Even the potentially distracting use of periodic asides, in the form of e-mails from the killer about his past crimes, serves to heighten tension and provide a focus for the reader. Then there's the spectacular, unforgettable description of a dive into a preserved pecan orchard at the bottom of a man-made lake. Some blatant misdirection may disgruntle certain readers, but this is a mere quibble with a book sure to enhance the author's solid reputation. (June 5)Forecast: Backed by blurbs from Dennis Lehane, Tami Hoag and Harlan Coben, this book is a dead cert for genre bestseller lists.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Bantam (May 29, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0553110977
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553110975
  • Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #664,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rick Riordan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, the Kane Chronicles, and the Heroes of Olympus. He is also the author of the multi-award-winning Tres Navarre mystery series for adults.

For fifteen years, Rick taught English and history at public and private middle schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Texas. In 2002, Saint Mary's Hall honored him with the school's first Master Teacher Award.

While teaching full time, Riordan began writing mystery novels for grownups. His Tres Navarre series went on to win the top three national awards in the mystery genre - the Edgar, the Anthony and the Shamus. Riordan turned to children's fiction when he started The Lightning Thief as a bedtime story for his oldest son.

Today over 30 million copies of his Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, and Heroes of Olympus books are in print in the United States, and rights have been sold into more than 35 countries. Rick is also the author of The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones, another #1 New York Times bestseller. In 2011, Rick received the Children's Choice Book Award for Author of the Year.

Rick Riordan now writes full-time. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and two sons.



 

Customer Reviews

19 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Mess with Texas, June 19, 2001
This review is from: The Devil Went Down to Austin (Hardcover)
Author Rick Riordan is on a roll! In this story, a murder investigation of Tres Navarre's friend, yields Navarre's brother as the #1 suspect. No room for error in Texas--a certain death sentence is looming. Riordan displays quite an aptitude for characterizations, as well as a great grasp of the great state of Texas.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Rick Riordan's Back and Better than Ever....., August 3, 2001
This review is from: The Devil Went Down to Austin (Hardcover)
Tres Navarre, San Antonian private investigator with a PhD in English Lit is, as the saying goes, hip deep in alligators. It seems his paraplegic brother, Garrett, a programming phenom and Jimmy Buffet parrothead, has mortgaged the family ranch to help pay his portion of a high-tech start-up, Techsan Security Software, and the lender is about to foreclose. Techsan's software product has run into all kinds of problems and bugs since a corporate takeover offer was refused and now lawsuits are being filed by all their beta-testers. When Garrett's oldest friend and partner, Jimmy Doebler is found murdered and all the evidence points to Garrett, Tres decides to head on down to Austin, wade into this mess, against his brother's wishes, and see if he can sort out what's really going on..... Rick Riordan has outdone himself with his latest unforgettable mystery/thriller, The Devil Went Down to Austin. His compelling, intricate plot comes at you from several different directions and is full of powerful, riveting scenes and his cast of terrific characters are original and well drawn. But it's Mr Riordan's sharp, witty writing and attention to detail that really make this novel stand out. With a stunning climax that ties up all the loose ends and a very satisfying ending, this is an intriguing story that's a "must read" for all mystery/thriller fans. If you're new to the Tres Navarre series, start at the beginning with The Big Red Tequila and read them all. If you're already hooked, you definitely won't be disappointed this time out!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Riordan has hit his stride, October 22, 2001
This review is from: The Devil Went Down to Austin (Hardcover)
English professor-cum-PI Tres Navarre heads from San Antonio up to Austin just in time to see his brother Garrett arrested for murder. A highly personal case becomes even more personal when attorney Maia Lee, the past love Tres never got over, arrives to defend Garrett and uncover facts about one of her own ex-clients.

I read 'Devil Went Down...', the fourth Tres Navarre title, immediately after finishing the first one, 'Big Red Tequila.' It's clear that author Rick Riordan's style and plotting have improved over time. Not that they were ever bad to start with -- far from it. But though still packed with Riordan's trademark twists and turns, the story in 'Devil Went Down...' was easier for me to follow than the often convoluted plots of earlier titles. Part of the difference may be that there seemed to be fewer characters to keep straight in this story.

There's one element of this book I'm not so sure about. From time to time, Riordan interrupts the narrative to include anonymous email messages. I won't spoil anything by saying what relevance, if any, these have to the story. But for the first time in the series, the reader has information that's not available to our narrator. As I said, I'm still not sure what I think of that.

On the other hand, I want to thank Rick Riordan for not allowing this novel's scuba-diving scenes to become James Bond-movie-style underwater mega-battle parodies. That would have been a tough hurdle for me to overcome.

This story takes place almost entirely in Austin, not Tres' hometown of San Antonio. But the South Texas atmosphere is still strong, Tres is maturing as a person (in his world) and as a fully drawn character (in ours), the other characterizations are solid, and the story itself is powerful. Of the four Navarre titles so far, the third and fourth have been my favorites. Which suggests that even greater things are to come -- he wrote hopefully.

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