{"id":4026,"date":"2021-05-03T08:31:58","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T15:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=4026"},"modified":"2021-05-03T08:31:58","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T15:31:58","slug":"stephen-mack-jones-dead-of-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/stephen-mack-jones-dead-of-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Mack Jones: Dead of Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m not sure what it is about Michigan that creates great private eye novelists, but whatever the reason, Stephen Mack Jones has joined the likes of Loren Estleman and Steve Hamilton in creating his Detroit based private eye, August Snow.\u00a0 August is a reluctant millionaire \u2013 an ex cop who sued the police department \u2013 and he now (mostly) spends his time renovating his neighborhood, Detroit\u2019s Mexicantown, one house at a time.\u00a0 When his godmother, Elena, calls, however, he agrees to meet with a dying man about his Mexicantown business.<\/p>\n

The old man wants him to buy his business and keep it viable, preventing richer developers from swooping in and creating high end condos instead of maintaining a core community business.\u00a0 While in no way does August want to buy a clunky old business that even the old man\u2019s daughter doesn\u2019t want, neither does he want fancy real estate speculators moving into his neighborhood and he agrees to look into it.<\/p>\n

What follows is an entertaining, sporadically violent, twisted story of connections, contract killers and the more down to earth aspects of August\u2019s life, i.e., his love life.\u00a0 While I\u2019ve mentioned Michigan writers above, Jones more closely resembles Robert B. Parker in his full on embrace of humor, cooking, and necessary violence in the service of the greater good.<\/p>\n

Jones is a writer who is insanely quotable.\u00a0 His way with words is original and memorable and sets him well apart from many, many other writers.\u00a0 He\u2019s also great at setting the scene, whether it\u2019s the gym where he goes to box, his home and kitchen, or a meet up at Detroit\u2019s Eastern market.\u00a0 These books are saturated in Detroit.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s updated about Jones is his contemporary attitude, which is a welcome breath of fresh air.\u00a0 His willingness to slide in zingers about the politics and attitudes of the present infuses his books with relevance.\u00a0 August himself is a bit of a superman \u2013 he\u2019s kind, but he\u2019s also stylish; violent but also vulnerable.\u00a0 The people in his life most likely to support and guide him turn out to be women \u2013 his godmother, his girlfriend, and the shade of his mother.<\/p>\n

Where Spenser had Hawk at his side, August has a whole community, including one of the men he basically took off the streets and who now helps him to flip houses.\u00a0 While there\u2019s almost a fantasy element in these books, it\u2019s no different that the one Lee Child presents in his Jack Reacher novels.\u00a0 We all need a little superman in our lives, and why can\u2019t it be a Mexican, African American, kindhearted soul from Detroit who loves to cook?\u00a0 I\u2019m all in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not sure what it is about Michigan that creates great private eye novelists, but whatever the reason, Stephen Mack Jones has joined the likes of Loren Estleman and Steve Hamilton in creating his Detroit based private eye, August Snow.\u00a0 August is a reluctant millionaire \u2013 an ex cop who sued the police department \u2013 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[564,163,565,15,566,166,165],"class_list":["post-4026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-dead-of-winter","tag-detroit","tag-foodie","tag-michigan","tag-private-eye","tag-soho-press","tag-stephen-mack-jones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4028,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4026\/revisions\/4028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}