Dog Island [Hardcover]

Mike Stewart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2001

Mike Stewart's debut mystery was published to rare praise. "An atmospheric setting, evocative family background, a Chinese box of a plot, and a hero tough and clever enough to surprise you as much as the bad guys .... The most accomplished debut of the season," hailed Kirkus Reviews. "Mike Stewart shows a talent for evoking atmosphere that has all but vanished from thriller novels," praised The Washington Post. "[He] finds heroism in ordinary men placed in extraordinary circumstances and evil in the seemingly banal." Now Stewart's attorney sleuth Tom McInnes pits wits against stone-cold killers who would rather commit murder than leave witnesses.

When a teenage runaway she has befriended witnesses a brutal murder, Susan Fitzsimmons puts in a call to her lawyer-friend, Tom McInnes. Tom makes a cursory inquiry through the local sheriff's office, only to trigger unexpectedly swift and forceful retaliation: His office is broken into and armed gunmen lay siege to Susan's house. The situation deteriorates as Tom and those close to him stir up several hornet's nests' worth of trouble across the Florida panhandle on their way to a deadly showdown.

With riveting action and perfect pacing, Mike Stewart follows through on the promise so evident in his mystery debut.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Dog Island, relative newcomer Mike Stewart sets the likable crew from his critically acclaimed first novel, Sins of the Brothers, on a deadly chase to discover the mastermind behind a brutal murder witnessed by a teenage runaway. As a favor to his friend Susan Fitzsimmons, Tom McInnes idly inquires into a murder that happened the night before at a beach house on the Florida Panhandle. The sheriff is in cahoots with the killers, we learn, because their payback for Tom's pointed questions involves breaking into his office 400 miles away in Mobile, and invading Susan's home, big guns a-blazing.

This gets McInnes ornery. By trade he's an attorney and isn't really built for the gritty life of your average killer or cop. But what he lacks in stamina he makes up for in brains. He foils shifty-eyed and lethal Sonny, for example, with cheese grit bombs folded in a paper napkin and dunked in ice water, startling the killer just long enough for Tom to make an unlikely escape. It's not every day that a hero volleys carbohydrates for justice. Accompanied primarily by the gigantic Joey (ex-cop, ex-FBI, ex-bodyguard), Tom pursues the killers to regional locations that turn deadly: swamps, rusty-roofed oyster shacks, white sand beaches. Tom's an ordinary guy who does extraordinary things, but doesn't have the sort of smug, god-like security that can dull the edge of other, lesser thrillers:

I lost balance and hit the ground chest first. Something dull and hard gouged the side of my neck. Wind rushed out on impact, and I made an involuntary "Oomph" sound. I grabbed for the stick that gouged my neck and pushed. It moved, but in a strange, organic, rolling motion. It was attached to something, and that something was a leg. My hand was wrapped around the dirt- caked toe of a cowboy boot. And I was lying full across someone's corpse.

Mike Stewart's a writer worth watching. Dog Island delivers a fast-paced adventure that is genuinely suspenseful and cleverly enlivened with credible character development. In other words, it's a one-two punch that thriller fans must investigate. --Kathi Inman Berens

From Publishers Weekly

After his well-received first mystery, Sins of the Brother (1999), Stewart scores big again with this second Tom McInnes thriller. McInnes, Mobile, Ala., lawyer and righter of wrongs, takes the case of Carli Monroe on the advice of Susan Fitzsimmons, a woman he met in his previous adventure. Carli, a young teenage runaway, has witnessed a brutal murder in an isolated beach cottage on the Florida Panhandle. The problem is, as McInnes learns the hard way, the local sheriff is in cahoots with the killers. For help with the rough stuff, McInnes turns to his friend Joey, a strapping private detective and former Navy intelligence agent, and Loutie Blue, a former stripper. Their investigation leads them to the Bodines, a vicious extended family known on the Panhandle as the "Redneck Mafia," who are none too particular about eliminating people who get in their way. McInnes narrowly escapes death several times as it soon becomes clear he's on the Bodines' hit list. When Carli disappears and a mysterious Cuban with his own special anti-Castro agenda enters the action, McInnes and his cohorts are really in trouble. This is a good, fast read, but not for the squeamish. (Jan. 11)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Edition edition (January 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399146458
• ISBN-13: 978-0399146459
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,389,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No surprises my foot!! This was a good book!!, August 14, 2001

By 

Michael in Helena, Alabama "Michael" (Helena, Alabama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dog Island (Hardcover)

If this book didn't keep you on the edge of your seat wondering what could possibly happen next, I don't know what would. Up until the last few paragraphs, the book twisted and turned with all sorts of possible changes.

True to form, Mr Stewart has written an excellent book, with characters that are good, but not quite as good as his first work, Sins of the Brother.

There is one picky detail that I'm stuck on, since I live in Mobile. The last time I checked, I-65 runs north/south, and I-10 runs east/west....

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great day on Dog Island, July 5, 2001

By 

Bonnie Ramthun (Erie, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dog Island (Hardcover)

A great story! I love mysteries where I am not only drawn in, but I'm transported. After finishing Dog Island I felt like I just got back from Florida. I was scratching at imaginary mosquito bites. Mike Stewart has an intimate, distinctive style that draws you in and makes you at home, even when Tom is about to get stomped by swamp hillbillies with big trucks. He never lets the story go and his characters are fresh and compelling.

Thanks for a great time, Mike. I can't wait to meet Tom and friends again.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great action swamped by implausibilty, April 22, 2001

By 

John Bowes (Oxford, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dog Island (Hardcover)

I'm going to keep picking up Stewart's books because the pacing and style are becoming more polished. An absolutely riveting page turner that is killed by being too complicated. Keep it simple. A good book doesn't need three endings. How do all those bodies go undiscovered? Our hero figures out the complex and overlooks the obvious. Strangers divulge secrets and offer aid without motive. There's a great book coming and I will wait.