Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "I saw a lot of fires when I was a cop in Detroit..." (more)
Key Phrases: boxer face, customs booth, cabin site, Constable Reynaud, Lake Agawaatese, Sault Ste (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

One of the most promising secondary figures in Steve Hamilton's series about reluctant northern Michigan PI Alex McKnight has always been his teetotaling Ojibwa Indian pal, Vinnie LeBlanc. But Vinnie remained mostly to himself through the first four McKnight adventures. Blood Is the Sky finally lets him loose, and it's both a pleasure and painful to see what results.

Vinnie's younger, ex-con brother, Tom, has disappeared. In violation of his parole, Tom had guided a small contingent of moose hunters into the pacific forests of Ontario, but none of them had returned home on schedule. To assuage Vinnie's worries, McKnight agrees to drive with him into Canada and look for the men. No luck; the owners of a money-losing lakeside lodge where those sportsmen had stayed say they departed days ago. So where did they go? Who were the two other, unidentified guys who came looking for them in advance of McKnight and his friend? And why was the hunters' vehicle abandoned, with their wallets inside, near an Indian reservation? Looking for answers, the detective and Vinnie set off into the woods, where hungry bears are by no means the most dangerous creatures they'll have to face.

Despite its Deliverance-like moments, and an explosively violent conclusion that's not sufficiently foreshadowed, Blood Is the Sky is really a gracefully composed study of character, as focused on Vinnie's strengths and failings as Hamilton's previous novel, North of Nowhere, was on the backstory of another series regular, bar owner Jackie Connery. Yet McKnight shines here, too, his self-effacing humor keeping readers amused, when they aren't amazed--again--by the lengths to which this supposedly lonerish sleuth will go to help a friend in trouble. --J. Kingston Pierce

From Publishers Weekly

Edgar winner Hamilton's engrossing novel of revenge, the fifth in his Alex McKnight series (after 2002's North of Nowhere), alternates between well-paced action fraught with danger and Alex's slow, meticulous inquiries. A former Detroit cop sidelined by a bullet, Alex is living quietly in Michigan's remote Upper Peninsula when he agrees to help an Ojibway friend, Vinnie Red Sky LeBlanc. Vinnie's searching for his black sheep brother, Tom, who hasn't returned from a job guiding a hunting party of wealthy Detroit men in the Canadian wilderness. The staff of an isolated lodge on an island-dotted lake arouses Alex and Vinnie's suspicions with their unsatisfactory explanations about the hunting party's trip. Then the anxious wives report their husbands are missing to the Ontario Provincial Police, leading Alex and Vinnie deeper into an investigation that eventually points to a crime in Detroit in 1985. The fate of Tom's hunting party becomes apparent early on, as the reader gets drawn into a complex series of inexplicable, and highly improbable, coincidences. Nonetheless, Hamilton develops his plot carefully. A fine writer, he excels at describing the lonely locale as well as depicting such memorable characters as tough-minded cop Natalie Reynaud and Maskwa, a 70-year-old Cree still flying his clapped-out plane around the Canadian skies.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur; First Edition edition (June 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312301154
• ISBN-13: 978-0312301156
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #965,212 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blood Is The Sky is excellent!, August 10, 2003

By	A. POOLE (Galashiels, Scotland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Blood Is The Sky - Steve Hamilton

This was my first Alex McKnight novel and it blew me away.

Alex McKnight, former Detroit police detective, beings to rebuild his previously destroyed (the last book maybe) log cabin in Paradise, Michigan, when a friend appears with bad news. Vinnie has lost his brother and needs Alex's help to find him. The two set off on a trail which takes them into the mountains and lakes of deepest Canada.

Switched identities, fearsome bears, moose with bad road sense and a deep, dark conspiracy test Alex and Vinnie's resilience and relationship to the limit. At once sad and funny, Hamilton has a great way of describing his surroundings, in what is obviously a well researched or well loved locality. You can feel the cold clammy weather under your shirt and you can imagine the miles and miles of unbroken forestland ahead of you. The camaraderie between Alex and Vinnie is excellent and all the other characters are carefully drawn.

In summary; great characters and an excellent plot, with a few twists to keep you on your feet, make this a sure fire award winner in the thriller genre.

Highly recommended.

Andrew Poole

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling On More Than One Level, January 3, 2004

By	Untouchable (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

After his recent adventures, chronicled in the previous book North Of Nowhere, Alex McKnight is attempting to pick up the pieces of his life by rebuilding his cabin with the help of Vinnie Le Blanc, an Ojibwa indian who is his friend and neighbour. Breaking the reverie that comes with the rebuilding process is news that Vinnie's brother Tom is way overdue from a hunting expedition in Canada where he was to act as a guide. The two men decide to head north in a bid to track Tom's movements and try to find him. From here the story turns into a fight for survival in the wilds of North Canada.

As Alex and Vinnie uncover the story of what happened up at the hunting lodge, more questions come up than are answered. They realise too late that their lives have become endangered but can't work out why. Of course, they aren't given terribly long to work on the why part of the question because they are kept busy working overtime trying to save their own skins.

It's a tantalising thriller that had me guessing right up towards the very end. Thrown in with this are the wonderful descriptions of the untamed wilderness of Ontario that was brilliantly captured by Hamilton. I found the story compelling reading on more than just one level making it doubly enjoyable.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ...Never Gives Up Her Dead..., May 31, 2003

By	TundraVision (o/~ from the Land of Sky Blue Waters o/~) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This is another full-strength North Woods mystery from Edgar Award winning author Steve Hamilton. Sufficient background information is provided that a reader would not necessarily need to start at the beginning with "A Cold Day in Paradise," - but why miss all the fun and excitement?

Alex McKnight, former Detroit cop, former Major League Baseball player for a day, currently cabin concierge cum reluctant investigator in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) signs on to help Ojibwa buddy Vinnie LeBlanc (Misquogeezhig - Red Sky) locate his wayward brother, last seen "guiding" a bunch of Detroit chimookomanag. This leads McKinight and LeBlanc through Northern Ontario - but it ain't no lightweight Bob Hope/Bing Crosby Road Movie. It's a taut tale, often bleak and gritty as the two, with help from friends and family back home in the UP, search for answers in the mysterious North. It's a fine addition to the Hamilton oeuvre. Reviewed by TundraVision