Hell Hole (John Ceepak Mystery) [Paperback]

Chris Grabenstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 2009 | Series: John Ceepak Mystery

Hell Hole is the fourth book in the mystery series featuring former hardened military PD and current Sea Haven, NJ police officer John Ceepak and his partner, wise-cracking Danny Boyle. In Hell Hole, Ceepak is confronted with his most personal case yet when he must investigate the alleged suicide of a military corporal who recently returned from  Iraq. When it turns out that this "locked stall" rest stop suicide is anything but an open-and-shut case, Ceepak and Boyle realize that the corporal might have been privvy to information that opens up a much larger conspiracy that strikes at the heart of our involvement in the Middle East, and puts them on the wrong side of some very unpleasant people...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

John Ceepak and his rookie sidekick, Danny Boyle, of the Sea Haven, N.J., police force look into the apparent suicide of Cpl. Shareef Smith, an Iraqi war vet whose body is discovered in a men's room at a Garden State Parkway rest stop, in Grabenstein's entertaining fourth John Ceepak mystery (after 2007's Whack a Mole). The loose plot involves a group of local-yokel thieves, a major drug dealer, a squad of soldiers fresh from the Iraqi battlefields and a blowhard senator who's running for president. As ever, the fun derives chiefly from the comic byplay between Danny, who's young, inexperienced and interested in girls and beer, and Ceepak, a straight-shooter who speaks like a robot and adheres to a strict moral code (I will not tolerate those who lie, cheat, or steal). While some readers may find Danny's narrative voice a tad annoying, even the grumpiest won't be able to resist the occasional smile. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The streets of Grabenstein’s New Jersey beach town get quite a bit meaner in the fourth installment in this entertaining series. An Army Ranger, just back from Iraq, turns up a suicide, and Sea Haven Police Department officers John Ceepak and Danny Boyle soon suspect he has been murdered. The dead man’s hard-partying, edgy fellow rangers include the son of an ambitious senator who wants to become president. When the senator hits town, events quickly escalate, and straight-arrow, decorated Iraq vet Ceepak and his partner find themselves investigating much more than simple murder. Like its three predecessors, this one is narrated breezily by the cynical Boyle, and Grabenstein again shows his intimate knowledge of Jersey shore towns, whose populations swell in the summer from a few thousand to a quarter million. But this series offers far more than a beach-book romp; Hell Hole is taut and satisfying crime fiction. --Thomas Gaughan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312565615
• ISBN-13: 978-0312565619
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,368,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Chris Grabenstein did improvisational comedy in New York City with Bruce Willis before James Patterson hired him to write advertising copy.

His first John Ceepak/Jersey Shore mystery TILT A WHIRL won the Anthony Award for Best First Mystery in 2006 and was followed by the critically acclaimed MAD MOUSE, WHACK-A-MOLE, HELL HOLE, MIND SCRAMBLER, ROLLING THUNDER (nominated for The Best Sidekick award) and, coming in 2012, FUN HOUSE. A Ceepak short story RING TOSS appeared in the June 2010 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

Chris has also published two holiday thrillers: SLAY RIDE and HELL FOR THE HOLIDAYS and became a New York Times Best Selling author thanks to his short story "The Demon In The Dunes," which appeared in the anthology DEATH'S EXCELLENT VACATION, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner (thanks Charlaine and Toni!)

FOR YOUNGER READERS....

His fist book for middle grades readers, THE CROSSROADS, won both the 2008 Agatha and Anthony Awards as Best Children's/YA novel, appeared on several "Best" lists, and has been optioned to become a movie. The second book in the series, THE HANGING HILL, also won the Agatha Award. The third Haunted Mystery, THE SMOKY CORRIDOR, all about a zombie who lives in the basement of a middle school, was published by Random House in August. The fourth book in the series, THE BLACK HEART CRYPT, will be published in 2011.

Chris wrote CURIOSITY CAT, the play within the book from THE HANGING HILL, for friends at the Children's Theater of Knoxville. The script is now available for production everywhere through world renowned play publisher Samuel French.

Chris's new middle grades caper series, RILEY MACK AND THE OTHER KNOWN TROUBLEMAKERS (an Ocean's Eleven starring eleven-year-olds) will be published by HarperCollins in January 2012 with the sequel slated for 2013.

Chris has also written for Jim Henson's Muppets and co-wrote THE CHRISTMAS GIFT, starring John Denver, a made-for-TV movie that first aired on CBS in 1986 and still shows up somewhere on cable very early in the morning every holiday season.

Chris's dog Fred, however, has the best credits in the family: Fred starred on Broadway in CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grabenstein's coming into his own as a master - Outstanding Mystery, July 22, 2008

By 

Lesa Holstine (Glendale, AZ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hell Hole (John Ceepak Mystery) (Hardcover)

The Jersey Shore portrayed in Chris Grabenstein's Hell Hole isn't exactly the paradise a chamber of commerce would want publicized. Instead, Grabenstein takes us to the world of Sea Haven, New Jersey, where police officers John Ceepak and Danny Boyle deal with the underside of a resort town - the drunken parties, the drugs, the run-down trailer parks.

Danny Boyle, who has grown from a part-time summer cop to a twenty-six-year-old full-time officer, guided by his partner's principles, continues to narrate the stories, with his own cock-eyed point of view. Ceepak is off one night, so Danny is partnered with a summer cop, Samantha Starky, when they're sent to the scene of a loud party. It's a drunken group of Airborne soldiers, returned from Iraq, and they're not too happy about dealing with the police, until they receive a phone call that one member of their group has been found dead, a probable suicide, at a reststop. Danny's not going to allow Sergeant Dixon to drive intoxicated, so he takes him to identify the body. That brings Danny to a crime scene that just doesn't look like a suicide, although he can't say why. However, the drugs found on the scene point back to Sea Haven, just the opportunity that Danny and Ceepak need to get involved in the case.

Only Ceepak and Boyle would want to stick their noses into this case, one involving a Senator, drugs, the partying soldiers, and Sea Haven's own lowlifes, the Feenyville Pirates. Only Grabenstein could so skillfully use this crime to reveal more about John Ceepak's background. Hell Hole becomes a complicated story that digs deep into Ceepak's emotions, dealing with the returned vets and his own memories, the suicide and his own past, and the story of his parents. This is the darkest of the Ceepak mysteries, the most complicated, and the best. Danny Boyle serves to alleviate that darkness. He's grown in the course of the series, but his wry commentaries are needed in these books.

Hell Hole is a complex story, revealing not only how much Danny has changed, but how much it takes for Ceepak to be the man he has become. Grabenstein continues to develop, writing darker, more ambitious stories. He hits his stride with Hell Hole, a dark crime story of politics, drugs, and family. If you've read all of the Ceepak mysteries, you're following the growth of a new master.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jersey Shore comic noir, August 19, 2008

By 

Ron Edison (Glen Ellyn, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hell Hole (John Ceepak Mystery) (Hardcover)

The latest entry in the John Ceepak series is easily the best, building on what was a brilliant series from the get-go. Grabenstein manages to be edgy and darkly realistic while retaining the humorous tone of Danny's narrative that makes this series so notable and successful. Like its predecessors, HELL HOLE follows traditional mystery form but drapes it with a grim authenticity and topicality that should appeal to mystery fans as well as those whose taste leans more to noir and thriller fiction.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best one yet, July 24, 2008

By 

Kathleen Williams (Ossining, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hell Hole (John Ceepak Mystery) (Hardcover)

This is the 4th book in the John Ceepak/Danny Boyle Sea Haven mystery series and I think it's the best one yet. Chris Grabenstein writes great dialog and really knows how to keep me turning the pages. I love that the Bruce Springsteen references are still there! My only regret is that I didn't save this gem for my shore reading!