Way Down On The High Lonely (Dead Letter Mysteries) [Mass Market Paperback]

Don Winslow (Author)

Book Description

Series: Dead Letter Mysteries | Publication Date: March 15, 1998

From domestic war to ballroom brawls. grad student-turned-P.I..I. Neal Carey's got more than studying on his plate.

Graduate student Neal Carey's three-year confinement in Chinese monastery is finally over-but his troubles are just beginning. The elusive financial benefactors who have bought his freedom expect a return on their investment. They want him to find Cody McCall, a two-year-old boy recently abducted by his father in a bitter Hollywood custody battle-a task that will propel Neal from the glittering Hollywood hills to the remote wilds of Nevada.

To find Cody, Neal has to turn outlaw in a land of two-bit casinos and roadside cathouses, and infiltrate a vicious white supremacist group spouting hatred and dealing in terror. But the deeper undercover he goes, the deadlier the game becomes. Now Neal must force a showdown with the group's crazed leader and find Cody before the missing toddler ends up lost in a world of unspeakable evil.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Edgar-nominee Winslow springs his wry New York protagonist, Neal Carey, from a forced stint in a Chinese monastery (don't ask, just read Trail to Buddha's Mirror ) and into a '90s Wild West odyssey with more surprises than a hatful of rattlesnakes. The unnamed bank for which Neal and his stepfather work (in "a shadow department that handled difficult problems for its larger investors") taps Neal to retrieve two-year-old Cody McCall, snatched by his divorced dad and taken to the wild backcountry of Nevada: the High Lonely. Neal's boss also wants to get the goods on the True Christian Identity Church, a vicious white supremacist organization to which Cody's father belongs. Signing on as a cowhand at racist Bob Hansen's ranch, Neal infiltrates the group by presenting himself as a "fund-raiser' for Hansen's thugs. Seduced by Nevada ranch life and a local schoolmarm, he ignores orders to come home. His superiors at the bank concoct grand scams that go zanily awry, lead to the chase and wind up with a gunfight at an old corral. The womenfolk hold their own, the setting is True West and the wit is drier than sagebrush. Winslow deftly balances hard-edged action with characters to really care about, all described in swift, sharp prose.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Looks like Neal Carey, the peripatetic agent of that free- lance justice troop Friends of the Family, will never get back to New York to write his dissertation on Tobias Smollett. This time he's sprung from three years in a Chinese monastery (The Trail to Buddha's Mirror, 1992) only to be sent undercover as a ranch-hand in the Nevada plains to scout out the Sons of Seth, a white- supremacist flock that's his best hope for locating two-year-old Cody McCall, snatched from his Hollywood mother during a paternal weekend. Neal settles in deep, of course, and his ritual ordeals- -having to sell out the rancher who took him in, breaking off his romance with tough schoolmarm Karen Hawley, going up against rotten-apple Cal Strekker, getting ordered to kill his Friendly mentor Joe Graham--are as predictable as the trademark dose of mysticism as the bodies pile up, and as the certainty that when the dust settles, Neal won't be back at school. Winslow's Aryan crazies don't have the threatening solidity of Stephen Greenleaf's (Southern Cross, p. 1102 ), but Neal's latest adventure is full of entertaining derring-do. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (March 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312964226
• ISBN-13: 978-0312964221
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,331,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Don Winslow (b. 1953) is the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen crime and mystery novels as well as short stories and film screenplays. A Cool Breeze on the Underground, Winslow's debut and the first novel in his popular Neal Carey series, was nominated for an Edgar Award. Before becoming a fulltime writer, Winslow worked as a private detective in New York and California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hard Hitting High Desert Drama, May 19, 2002

By 

sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Way Down on the High Lonely (Hardcover)

This is my first outing with Don Winslow's Neal Carey series after enjoying the fine "California Fire & Life," I reaffirmed that Mr. Winslow is a careful and crafty writer. The setting in the Nevada high desert country is well rendered and atmospheric. The dialogue is crisp, though slightly portentous. The characters are larger than life, but carefully drawn.

Neal is a member of a mysterious group, "Friends of the Family" who undertake quasi-legal jobs at the behest of a fabulously wealthy philanthropic employer. What looks like a routine child custody abduction by an irresponsible father develops into a huge conspiracy that could have global implications. Sound like "Mission Impossible"? That crossed my mind too.

Neal goes deep undercover to locate toddler Cody McCall whose father is tracked to a white supremacist group led by an unctuous Rev. Carter. The group is training on a ranch in a remote Nevada area sponsored by the owner/rancher. Neal quickly makes friends with some very fine citizens in the small community and begins his infiltration of the group.

Neal has a present identity problem; it is if, as one friend says, "he has personality, but no character." He literally becomes his undercover guise. The author doesn't pull any punches; Neal betrays his newfound kind friends in order to protect his undercover status, which is very discomforting to read. The villains are just as ruthless, cunning and determined as the protagonists who include beside Nick a bearlike unflappable Ed, and one-armed father figure Joe.

The action is fierce; the pace is uniformly swift and retribution satisfying. I'm looking forward to more Neal Carey.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good, but not great, April 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Way Down On The High Lonely (Dead Letter Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Winslow series featuring Neal Carey, has a certain charisma. Always well written and entertaining. The characters in this one are a little too stereotyped and the goings on a little too predictable. But, as always, a fun and quick read. Check out the whole series for a good time without too much to think about. "Cool Breeze On the Underground" still the best of them.

4.0 out of 5 stars Reading Winslow, December 11, 2011

By 

Ken C. "Ken C." (So. Cal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Way Down On The High Lonely (Dead Letter Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

Having read all of Don Winslow's later novels, it's now time to see how this fine author developed, so I am reading some of his early works. Way Down on the High Lonely starts out so well, typical Winslow. He takes the rugged area of eastern Nevada and makes it so appealing. But when it turns ugly, the book loses some interest for me. In his later novels Winslow takes an almost poetic look at violence and corruption, but here it is just violent. The ugliness of the racist taint to the area seems a stretch, even though I know that there are people like that.