Customer Reviews

Tin City (Mac McKenzie Mysteries)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
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This is the second book in a new series focused on Rushmore "Mac" McKenzie, who used to be a St. Paul policeman, but retired after collecting a $3 million bounty on an embezzler. Now, he does the occasional "favor" for his friends and otherwise takes it pretty easy. At the start of _Tin City_, Mac gets a call from Mr. Mosley, an old friend of his father's, who is a beekeeper and wants Mac's help figuring out why an unusually large number of his bees have been dying off lately. Mac calls in a favor from a friend in the entomology department at the University of Minnesota and it's not too long before the friend's graduate teaching assistant has tracked down the source of a pesticide being sprayed on a neighboring property, which is drifting over to Mosley's hives and killing his bees. When the teaching assistant calls in and reports being shot at, Mac and Mosley hurriedly drive to the scene to offer their assistance. At the scene, they're confonted by a man holding a shotgun and telling them they're trespassing. They leave, only to involve one of Mac's other friends, a lawyer, by having him send a threatening letter to the property's owner. From there, events suddenly turn violent--Mosley is killed and the lawyer's wife is assaulted, leaving Mac a very angry man who must get to the bottom of things and track down the man responsible.

This was an excellent book, with its settings and locations around the Twin Cities brought to convincing life. Much of the story takes place in a tiny municipality called Hilltop, the "tin city" of the title, which is an actual place, a city of mobile homes completely surrounded by the larger city of Columbia Heights. Mac pretends to be a writer for _Trailer Life_ magazine and interviews several of the residents, allowing Housewright to include some fascinating historical details about this real place (I checked my Twin Cities street atlas just to make sure, and sure enough, there is a Hilltop, right where Housewright says it is). Along the way, Mac falls in love with Penelope Glass, a song writer and the neglected wife of a rogue FBI agent. The scenes describing their conversations and a dinner they have together have a real sweetness to them. Mac finds himself in the middle of a complicated mess, involving a mobster on the run from a botched assassination attempt in New York and a couple of local gangster wanna-be's, and things are complicated further when the FBI agent places a locate and detain order for him, requiring Mac to go underground.

Mac's an appealing character, with lots of friends in high and low places. His loyalty to his friends and willingness to do what it takes to make things right, as well as his thoughts on his deceased father and the hand Mr. Mosley had in bringing him up to be a "good guy," and the uncertainty he feels when he gets some measure of vengeance, make him a pretty complicated character. _Tin City_ is an excellent follow-up to the very strong _A Hard Ticket Home_ and, hopefully, there will be many more "Mac" McKenzie novels to follow. Highly recommended.

It was such an exciting book that I read it in one day. I couldn't put it down! Great author. And now I am buying all his books. I go to his book signings now & have him autograph the books for me!

This is the second book in the series featuring Rushmore "Mac" McKenzie, who used to be a St. Paul policeman, but retired after collecting a $3 million bounty.

He now keeps busy by occasionally doing favors for his friends. For instance, Mac gets a call from Mr. Mosley, an old friend of his father's and Mac's "Second Dad", who is a beekeeper and wants Mac to help figure out why his bees are dying off. Mac has a friend in the Entomology Dept. at the University of Minnesota and soon the teaching assistant (TA) assigned to track down the problem discovers that a pesticide being sprayed on a neighboring property has drifted over to Mosley's and is killing the bees. Soon the TA calls to report being shot at and Mac and Mosley drive to the scene. There, they are confronted by a man with a shotgun who tells them they're trespassing, so they leave. Mac then asks a favor from a lawyer-friend to send a letter on the attorney's stationary to the property owner. Events suddenly turn violent with Mosley murdered in his kitchen and the lawyer's wife raped. These events force Mac to feel he must get to the bottom of things and track down the man responsible for both events.

This was a great read. Much of the story take place in or near a trailer park near the Twin Cities in a very tiny municipality called Hilltop, the "Tin City" of the title. Mac pretends to be a writer for "Trailer Life Magazine" which gives him the cover he needs to seek out and interview residents of this tiny hamlet. While conducting interviews, Mac becomes infatuated with Penelope (Pen) Glass, a song writer and much-neglected wife of a rogue FBI agent. Mac soon finds himself in the middle of a complicated affair which involves a NY mobster on the run from a botched assassination attempt of a Mafia capo, a couple of local hoods, and the rogue FBI agent. Things are complicated further when the rogue agent places a "Locate And Detain" order on him, requiring Mac to go underground with fake ID and credit cards.

Mac is an engaging character whose loyalty to his friends knows no bounds. He is driven by his sense of justice and is willing to do whatever it takes to find out who murdered Mosley and attacked his friends's wife. He will stay the course no matter the cost to him, but he does feel some sense of unease when he gets his revenge.

Housewright is an engaging author and winner of an Edgar. I encourage readers to check out his work.

#2 Mac MacKenzie mystery set in and around the Twin Cities, MN. Mac works as a private investigator but due to having his own financial resources, often takes cases without a paying client. In this book, Mr. Mosley, and old friend of his father's, asks him to look into what could be causing the demise of the honeybees in his hives. Mac hires a research assistant to a friend of his at the University to go out and take soil samples--and when she ends up getting shot at by an unknown farmer, Mac pays the farm a visit and ends up embroiled in a case of a rogue mafia don and a rogue FBI agent having a power struggle. The problem is, Mac's friends end up getting in the crossfire, with Mr. Mosley dead and his lawyer's wife attacked.

Determined to find the man who killed Mr. Mosley and bring him to justice, Mac passes himself off as a journalist from South Dakota doing a story on the city of Hilltop, a small enclave that seceded from the suburb of Columbia Heights. The FBI agent resides there temporarily and Mac wants to find out what he is up to in the hopes that he will be led to the mafia guy, whom he believes is responsible for Mr. Mosley's death.

As much as I enjoy the writing style and the wonderful local color and ambiance, I find this story, much like the first in this series, to be too fantastical to be believed. Far too many coincidences, and the main character has an almost super-hero list of friends who will go to no end of trouble to do very big, very strange favors for him. I mean, it's almost laughable at times, and I found myself snorting and mumbling, "yeah, right!" because it was one extremely-unlikely situation after another. Still, I did mostly enjoy it and liked the little history lesson about Hilltop as well.

Rushmore "Mac" McKenzie is a former St. Paul Police officer who became wealthy when he left the force to accept a three-million-dollar bounty on an embezzler. He may be retired but he manages to keep busy helping friends in trouble.

Mr. Mosley, a beekeeper and an elderly family friend, wants Mac to help him find out why his bees are dying. Mac agrees to look into the problem with the help of the entomology department at the University of Minnesota. When the graduate student who is taking soil samples is shot at, Mac and Mosley drive to the scene and are confronted by a large man with an even-larger shotgun.

Mac and Mosley ask an attorney friend to send a threatening letter to the man who assaulted them verbally and physically. Violence erupts when the lawyer's wife is raped and Mosley is murdered. Mac becomes determined to track down the responsible person or persons and bring them to justice (whatever justice looks like).

During the investigation, Mac poses as a writer for a magazine titled Trailer Life. Using that cover, he is based in a tiny Twin Cities municipality called Hilltop. He uncovers a rogue FBI agent with a songwriter wife, Penelope (whom Mac falls "a little bit" in love with) and a mobster on the run from the mob.

What started as a simple investigation into dying honeybees may cost Mac a lot-maybe his own life, or someone he cares about.

David Housewright, author of Tin City is one of my favorite mystery writers. He is almost pitch perfect in plot, characterization, motivation and pacing. His ability to articulate the feel of the Twin Cities might be expected since he lives there, but I think it's more than that. It's what I call "the touch." Others that have it are Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly and Robert Crais. Simply put, I'd read a cereal box if David Housewright wrote it.

That said, I have one criticism. I read mysteries to be entertained. I found the author's inclusion of what I took to be a personal political statement distracting. I'm weary of folks using their public access as a political platform, even if I happen to agree with them. And I don't look for things to offend me; this found me.

This book was great. I love the main character, Mac McKenzie. The writing style of the author reminds me of Robert Parker of the "Spenser" novels. To go further back in time, McKenzie reminds me of Shell Scott in the Richard Prather books of old. Great story, great characters, good read. I highly reccomend this book to anyone that just wants to enjoy a fun book.

I just cannot lay down a Housewright novel, Tin City is no exception. A very good read.

Rushmore "Mac" MacKenzie was a police detective. Somehow he found an embezzler no one else could find, and contrived to resign his position on the force so he could collect the reward from the bank the guy embezzled from, so that Mac could then retire with the $3 Million and live the rest of his life having fun doing good deeds for other people, especially his friends. I guess this makes him into a sort of modern-day Robin Hood, except he doesn't need to rob people.

Mac's father's friend, Mr. Mosley, grows honey bees. They're getting sick (the bees are) and dying of some poison, and Mr. Mosley wants Mac to find out where the poison is coming for so a stop can be put to it. Mac engages various people he knows in this cause, and one of them gets shot at while investigating the possibility of poison on land near Mr. Mosley's. This sends a series of events spinning out of control, and before it's over, Mr. Mosley's dead, a woman's been raped, and someone tries to run Mac and his girlfriend off the road. Soon, everyone's looking for Mac: the FBI even has a mysterious warrant out for him, which appears to infer the Feds have a special cell for him down at Guantanamo. So of course he has to go underground and put things right.

This is what detective novels used to be. Tin City is a good solid story, not even 300 pages long, and contains all of the plot twists and action that you'd expect in such a story. The characters are believable, sometimes even likable, and the action moves along at a reasonable pace. The dialogue is reasonably amusing, and Housewright works the plot along at a reasonable pace. There's the usual fears expressed about the government looking into your library lending habits and so forth, as if such things are usually incriminating. This is, however, a sidebar in an otherwise entertaining story. I will admit I wasn't that convinced by the romance in the middle of the story: frankly it occurred in circumstances that creeped me out somewhat, and I just didn't find it that credible, either.

Other than that, this is a good book, and I found it fun and entertaining. It's not a 600 page mystery (seemingly the style these days); instead it has a plot, characters, and action, and gets along with the story. I enjoyed it.

In Norwood Young America, wealthy former St. Paul cop Rushmore "Mac" McKenzie's elderly neighbor Mr. Mosley tries to hand to him three dead honeybees, but Mac refuses to touch them; Mosley calls him a wimp. Mosley further explains that last year he lost a fifth of his bee population and so far this year a third. He wants Mac to determine what is killing his bees. Mac will do anything for the man who served with his dad during the Korean War except touch bees.

Mac and Mosley visit the only new "neighbor" Frank Crosetti, who greets them with a shotgun. Yesterday he fired at a visiting University of Minnesota coed who was taking soils samples seeking evidence of an insecticide Sevin XLR Plus, which apparently is killing the honeybees. A "Suit" tells the two visitors they are trespassing and must leave. Not long afterward, Crosetti rapes Mac's friend Susan Tillman and threatens her daughter next if Mac fails to back off. At about the same time Mosley takes two bullets to the head. Law enforcement and friends blame Mac who finds Crosetti is gone, but not forgotten. Mac searches the dregs of the Gopher State to bring Crosetti to justice if he does not kill him first, but also wants to know the reason why all this happened.

TIN CITY is an intriguing private investigator (though Mac is unlicensed) tale that will keep fans hooked yet struggling to figure out Crosetti's motive. The story line is action-packed taking off from the moment of the first visit and never slowing down as cops hunt for Mac while he hunts for Crosetti. In his second Mac mystery (see Hard Ticket Home), David Housewright provides a fabulously dark Minnesota Noir.

Harriet Klausner

Except for a few soft-hearted touches, a good read. Less romance and more hardboiled action would put it over the top. I'm for more.