A Stolen Season (Charnwood Large Print) [Import] [Hardcover]

Steve Hamilton (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Ulverscroft Large Print Books Ltd; Large Print Ed edition (July 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1846178045
• ISBN-13: 978-1846178047
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,439,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steve Hamilton was born in Detroit and attended the University of Michigan, where he was awarded the prestigious Avery Hopwood Prize for writing. His first novel, A Cold Day in Paradise, won the St. Martin's Press/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Contest before going on to win both the Edgar and Shamus Awards for Best First Novel. In 2006, Steve won the Michigan Author Award for his outstanding body of work. He lives in Cottekill, New York, with his wife, Julia, and their two children. Visit his Web site at www.authorstevehamilton.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alex McKnight goes to war in this novel!!!!, January 11, 2007

By 

Wayne C. Rogers (Las Vegas, Nevada United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Stolen Season: An Alex McKnight Novel (Alex McKnight Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I've been reading the "Alex McKnight" series by Steve Hamilton since it started back during the late nineties with a Cold Day in Paradise. The books have always been more character driven than action, which enables the reader to get to know the protagonist on a more intimate level, thereby making the series more fun to read. So far I've enjoyed each and every novel that Mr. Hamilton has written. I have to say, however, that the newest book in the series, A Stolen Season, steals the show. I started out reading fifty pages a night. Then, I got midway in the novel and something happened to the main character that forced me to stay up all night and finished the blasted thing. There was simply no way that I'd be able to sleep, knowing what I did. I had to find out what happened next even if it meant going a day without sleep. On one level that's what good storytelling is all about. On another, I wanted to literally grab Mr. Hamilton by the shoulders and shake him until he explained why he'd done such a tragic thing to our hero, Alex McKnight. Yeah, I know. It's only fiction. Still, when an author writes well-developed characters, the readers slowly begin to care for them as if they're close friends. In fact, I almost want to say that while the novel is being read, the characters are every bit as real as the people who live next door. Maybe more real, if you're a hermit like me.

A Stolen Season starts out on two fronts. On the one end, Alex McKnight unintentionally gets involved with some unsavory characters when he and his friend Leon save three guys in a boating accident from drowning. It later turns out that the guys are mixed up in some illegal drug trafficking between the United States and Canada. Because something of value was lost during the accident, the guys think that either Alex, or one of his friends, have it. They start putting the pressure on Alex, and he immediately begins to hit back, not realizing the caliber of people that he's dealing with and how dangerous they are. Alex will underestimate the guys and ultimately find himself standing on a bluff with a handgun pointed at his face, waiting to die. On the second front, Alex's girlfriend, Natalie Reynaud, has moved to Toronto to do undercover work for the police department there. Her job is to get close to the girlfriend of one of the most terrifying men that she's ever met and to hopefully break up a ring of gun smugglers. Something eventually happens that brings the two fronts together, driving Alex McKnight to the edge of despair at the tragedy that has erupted in his life. His blood brother, Vinnie, helps him to gradually recover. It's only then that Alex decides to paint his face red with his own blood and to go to war. From that moment, Alex is on a personal mission to kill anybody who was involved in the tragedy that has changed his life forever. He no longer cares if he lives or dies. His only purpose is revenge. God help anyone who gets in his way!

What can I say? A Stolen Season chilled me to the bone with what happens to Alex McKnight. It was totally unexpected and stunned me in a way I haven't experienced very often with a novel. I'm still dealing with it even as I write this short review. As usual the writing is excellent, the suspense is nerve wracking, a lot of people end up dead, and the story ends sooner than you would like. The author has already stated in his newsletter that it's going to be awhile before the next "Alex McKnight" novel. I had to wait two years for this book to come out, and now I have to wait another two years for the next novel. This is definitely cruel and unusual punishment from an author I have grown to like. I will say that Steve Hamilton has created a series that's every bit as good as anything James Lee Burke or Robert Parker has written. Once you get started on one of the "Alex McKnight" books, you'll want to read them all. No brag, just fact. This is a fantastic series that I highly recommend to anyone who's the least bit interested in great writing and a fictional hero that stands out with the best in literature.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars superb McKnight mystery, September 9, 2006

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Stolen Season: An Alex McKnight Novel (Alex McKnight Mysteries) (Hardcover)

In the Upper Peninsular of Michigan, retired Detroit cop Alex McKnight noted how freezing the Fourth of July is this year as he stops in Brimley for a drink or two and a baseball game on TV to warm his insides though he knows summer here lasts one day. Even a brass monkey would freeze its balls off in this cold. Alex, his so-called sleuthing partner Leon Prudell (of Prudell-McKnight Investigation fame) and Coast Guard Auxiliary Tyler soon are outside in the cold rescuing three drunken men (Cap, Harry, and Brucie) from a boating accident in nearby Waishkey Bay.

Not long after saving the lives of the trio, the grateful threesome return to Brimley and accuse Alex and his two friends (make that one pal and a possible bud) of stealing their locked box from their devastated boat. Angrily, Alex does a bit of investigating and learns that the gruesome threesome are extorting the Bay Mills Indian tribe out of government funded painkillers that they resell on the black market. As he continue his inquiries, his Ontario police officer girlfriend Natalie Reynaud arrives at his cabin in Paradise because her undercover illegal arms case has connections on the American side of Lake Superior that soon ties into Alex's prescription medicine investigation.

The seventh McKnight mystery is a superb entry that not only brings to life the area, but also highlights a growing problem with prescription pill contraband. The story line is filled with twists and turns, and red herrings as everyone seems as if they are double crossing one another until the shocking climax. Steve Hamilton is at his Edgar best with this unnerving tale in which the chilling weather fits the mood.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cold July?, August 20, 2007

By 

Charlean Souligne (Port St. Lucie, Fl. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Stolen Season: An Alex McKnight Novel (Alex McKnight Mysteries) (Hardcover)

Another great Alex McKnight story by the prolific storyteller Steve Hamilton. There are twists and turns at every step in his fast-paced story.

We again encounter Alex McKnight; retired Detroit Cop who spends his days refurbishing the cabins his father left him in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

We find this is not an friendly environment. Here it is, the 4th of July and it is cold, foggy and rainy. The story begins with the crash of a very expensive wooden classic boat. McKnight and the friends he is with, save three people from the sinking boat. But after that things get very disturbed and a twisted plot involving illegal guns, drugs, murder and mayhem both on the United States and the Canadian sides of the river.

Also in this book, we see Alex coming to terms with his relationship with Natalie Reynaud, a Canadian police officer whom we have encountered in previous books about McKnight and company.

I love how Hamilton keeps the action moving, Alex is not a policeman anymore, in fact he is usually at odds with the local authorities in both countries. He is not a private investigator, he has to borrow a gun when he feels he needs one. But trouble always seems to find Alex, or one of his very small group of friends and he does his best to take care of the situation and get the bad guys in the end.

This was actually a sad book in many ways, the torments that Alex goes through, the errors that make him doubt himself and his feelings all come to the forefront. I'm not sure where Hamilton will take Alex next, if he does at all. I hope so, just so we can see some life and feeling return to the shell left at the end of this book.