{"id":1033,"date":"2013-05-31T17:44:36","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T23:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2013-05-31T17:44:36","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T23:44:36","slug":"david-housewright-the-last-kind-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/david-housewright-the-last-kind-word\/","title":{"rendered":"David Housewright: The Last Kind Word"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There are seriously few writers who can beat David Housewright for sheer storytelling power.\u00a0 His books hit the ground running and don\u2019t let up until the last page.\u00a0 This is the latest Rushmore \u201cMac\u201d MacKenzie novel, and Housewright has taken a slightly new tack.\u00a0 Mac is undercover as desperate criminal Dyson\u00a0 in order to help catch a band of robbers and more importantly, the gunrunners who are supplying them with weapons at the Canadian border.<\/p>\n

\"thelastkindword\"<\/a>The opening chapter is pure, classic Housewright.\u00a0 The only other author who can match his opening chapter skills is Barbara D\u2019Amato, who has several first chapters that remain my favorites of all time,\u00a0 her ultimate being the baby crawling across Chicago\u2019s Dan Ryan expressway in 2010\u2019s Other Eyes.<\/i><\/p>\n

Housewright\u2019s book opens with two prisoners being transported through the wilds of Minnesota\u2019s back woods and their ultimate escape.\u00a0 Of course the mastermind is MacKenzie, but his identity is under wraps as you race through the first chapter waiting to see what unfolds.\u00a0 That\u2019s the great things about Housewright \u2013 every story he tells feels fresh, even if he\u2019s using old and well used tropes, as he often is.<\/p>\n

\u201cDyson\u201d goes undercover with the other escapee, Dave\u2019s, family.\u00a0 Known to the media as \u201cThe Iron Range Bandits,\u201d they are in reality a sad group of desperate folks blindsided by a bad economy in a traditionally hard scrabble area.\u00a0 MacKenzie has a very well developed Robin Hood\/White Knight complex \u2013 in this novel, the Robin Hood part gets in the way of the job he\u2019s trying to do.<\/p>\n

As Dyson, he\u2019s a bit of a hard ass.\u00a0 As MacKenzie, not so much.\u00a0 As he and the bandits plan an elaborate robbery, he starts to feel bad for almost every member of the family, all of whom Housewright has delineated in a crisp and memorable manner.\u00a0 He finds himself in the uncomfortable role of the \u201cboss\u201d, and in truth, he\u2019s much more sophisticated that just about all of the bandits, though like any newcomer to any group, he makes his share of wrong assumptions.<\/p>\n

The title comes from the last kind word spoken to Christ by his fellow sufferer, who was a robber.\u00a0 While the moral isn\u2019t exactly there\u2019s good in everyone (there are definite bad guys here) it might be that there\u2019s good in very unexpected places.\u00a0 Dyson\/Mac is challenging our own assumptions.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019ve made the comparison before, it bears repeating:\u00a0 if you are missing the snappiness of Robert B. Parker\u2019s Spenser, look no further.\u00a0 David Housewright, in all his Minnesota glory (and wouldn\u2019t Spenser have enjoyed a \u201cLeinie\u201d right along with Mac?) is Parker\u2019s direct descendant.\u00a0 This is another terrific story \u2013 I can\u2019t wait for the next one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are seriously few writers who can beat David Housewright for sheer storytelling power.\u00a0 His books hit the ground running and don\u2019t let up until the last page.\u00a0 This is the latest Rushmore \u201cMac\u201d MacKenzie novel, and Housewright has taken a slightly new tack.\u00a0 Mac is undercover as desperate criminal Dyson\u00a0 in order to help … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-p-i"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1036,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions\/1036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}