Lone Creek [Kindle Edition]

Neil McMahon (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. McMahon (Revolution No. 9 and three other thrillers starring Dr. Carroll Monks) delivers his finest achievement to date with this beautifully written stand-alone set in contemporary Montana. Hugh Davoren, a former journalist and ex-boxer now doing construction near where he grew up outside Helena, is working on the building of a massive residence on the old Pettyjohn homestead, recently purchased by an East Coast businessman, Wesley Balcomb. Davoren keeps his head low and does his job, until he comes across two thoroughbred horses unceremoniously shotgunned and buried in the site trash dump. Next thing he knows, Davoren's thrown in jail overnight on a trumped-up charge. What kind of shady operation is Balcomb running, and why is he suddenly so determined to ruin Davoren's life? Aided by his co-worker and friend, "Madbird," a hardcase Blackfoot Indian and Vietnam vet, Davoren grapples with a host of antagonists, including Kirk Pettyjohn, old man Pettyjohn's crack-addict son, and an assassin known as John Doe. A natural storyteller, McMahon is sure to appeal to fans of James Crumley and Jim Harrison. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* In his Carroll Monks series, McMahon wrote four strong medical thrillers (I^ Revolution No. 9, 2005), but his latest book, a crime novel set on the back roads of Montana, feels like the one he was meant to write all along. When Hugh Davoren, a ruminative ex-boxer and a construction worker on the sprawling Pettyjohn Ranch, stumbles across two dead horses in the ranch dump, he finds himself caught in a firestorm of events. Arrested, jailed, bailed, framed, and attacked, he is suddenly outside and on the run, with only his friend Madbird--a sidekick as memorable as Walter Mosley's Mouse--to watch his back while he tries to figure out who thinks he knows something and what he's supposed to know. I^ Lone Creek gallops through some rugged terrain. Davoren, "the kind of guy who'd always bought dear and sold cheap," has a complicated past at the ranch, one that's tangled up with a dying ranching dynasty and a dead girl whose memory won't stay buried. Add to that the collision of Old West and new--laconic ranch hands, deep-pocketed dudes, and meth-snorting, wannabe soldiers of fortune--and you have a thriller of deeply satisfying complexity. McMahon might be ready to take his place alongside such writers as James Crumley and C. J. Box. We'd better see Davoren again--if we don't, it will be a crime. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 386 KB
• Print Length: 354 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0060792221
• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books (October 13, 2009)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001A16X6I
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #424,258 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Neil McMahon is the co-author, with James Patterson, of the #1 New York Times bestseller, TOYS, and has published seven other mainstream thrillers. Between 1987-90, he also published three horror novels under the pseudonym Daniel Rhodes. He holds a degree in psychology from Stanford, and is a journeyman carpenter, with many years spent working in construction. He moved to Montana in 1971 and lives there with his wife, Kim, who coordinates the annual Montana Festival Of The Book.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Getting to be a must read author!, June 10, 2007

By 

Richard Merriman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lone Creek (Hardcover)

A great book in a setting and with plot unlike anything McMahon has written before with an attention to detail that makes the book come alive. (Few people know that when on a motorcycle your knuckles get cold very fast or that Timothy is a type of grass used to make hay.) I hope for many more books from McMahon set in the "Big Sky Country".

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "He inadvertently unleashes a maelstrom of explosive violence that can only end one way...", May 29, 2007

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lone Creek (Hardcover)

Neil McMahon, author of the Dr. Carroll Monks series, has established a reputation as a competent if under-appreciated journeyman writer. His latest novel meets and exceeds any and all expectations raised by his previous work.

LONE CREEK is a world removed from the Monks books, trading the hospital environs of San Francisco for McMahon's home turf of Montana, and Monks's surgical scrubs for the carpentry tools of one Hugh Davoren. I suspect that McMahon has much more in common with Davoren than he does with Monks --- McMahon lives in Montana and, like Davoren, is a carpenter --- and the apparent similarities between the two men infuses LONE CREEK with a reality and an immediacy that is a rarity in works of fiction.

The book begins with Davoren doing carpentry work for Wesley Balcomb, the new owner of the Pettyjohn Ranch near Helena, Montana. The ranch holds a mixed bag of memories for Davoren that is all but swept away when he makes a grisly if accidental discovery on the ranch property while working. He is then fired and arrested on the same day, in what appears to be a setup.

Davoren's job termination is the least of his worries, though, as it quickly becomes clear that Balcomb isn't satisfied with simply ruining him --- Balcomb wants him dead. Davoren's allies are few, but one --- Madbird, an Indian carpenter who easily walks away with the book --- helps Davoren to even the odds, despite being outnumbered by lawyers, guns and money. Ultimately, however, as Davoren slowly uncovers the secrets of Balcomb and the Pettyjohn ranch, he inadvertently unleashes a maelstrom of explosive violence that can only end one way.

As compelling as Davoren and Madbird are, the real protagonist of LONE CREEK is Montana itself, brought to vivid, thundering life by McMahon's prose. Writers, both veteran and fledgling, will often hold up --- and rightfully so --- the opening paragraph of THE LAST GOOD KISS by James Crumley as an example of all that good writing should be. I suspect that the first page of LONE CREEK will be held in similar high esteem. Read it, and then try to put the book down, even for a few minutes. The momentum of its words sweeps you along, as Davoren's first-person account slices in and out of his life, past and present, and we learn not only of his rough edges but also how they got there.

LONE CREEK is most assuredly a keeper --- as intriguing a work of fiction as you'll read all year.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read !, April 12, 2007

By 

Thomas D. Walker (Sandy, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lone Creek (Hardcover)

The only negative thing about Lone Creek is that it ended.

Every once in a while I find a book I enjoy so much that I am saddened when it is finished.

I have ordered his other four books as well as a couple more copies of Lone Creek to give to friends.

Great job Neil.