{"id":582,"date":"2012-06-03T10:40:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T16:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=582"},"modified":"2012-06-03T10:40:15","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T16:40:15","slug":"david-housewright-curse-of-the-jade-lily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/david-housewright-curse-of-the-jade-lily\/","title":{"rendered":"David Housewright: Curse of the Jade Lily"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/form>\n

\u201cYou became Batman.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHardly.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Donatucci snorted.\u00a0 \u201cEverything but the cape and the car,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cTearing around, working with the cops; sometimes working against the cops; doing good for goodness sake\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Miss Robert B. Parker?\u00a0 There\u2019s really no need \u2013 give the excellent David Housewright a try to fulfill your Spenser jones.\u00a0 All things being equal, Housewright would be as well known a quantity as Parker, as their skillsets are not only similar but similarly enjoyable.\u00a0 Housewright\u2019s central character, Rushmore MacKenzie (though he goes by MacKenzie, and can you blame him?)\u00a0 lives in St. Paul rather than Spenser\u2019s Boston, and he has no sidekick, but other differences are less discernible.<\/p>\n

This is far from a cut as I\u2019ve enjoyed Parker\u2019s novels and his great creation as much as anyone.\u00a0 And Housewright\u2019s novels, while perhaps slightly more complex than Parker\u2019s, have a wisecracking tone that\u2019s very comfortable and familiar.\u00a0 MacKenzie\u00a0 is so much the \u201cWhite Knight\u201d that he doesn\u2019t even charge his clients anything.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t need to \u2013 he\u2019s independently wealthy thanks to a long ago insurance settlement.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t like to work, but he likes to keep busy, and when he sees a wrong, a good way to keep busy is to right it.<\/p>\n

While in this novel MacKenzie has been sought out by a paying client, that isn\u2019t usually the case.\u00a0 He\u2019s approached by the very insurance agent who made the original payout to him, on behalf of a new Minneapolis art museum.\u00a0 A priceless treasure known as the Jade Lily has been stolen and for a museum this new, publicity about a high profile theft can be nothing short of a disaster.\u00a0 And \u2013 oh yeah \u2013 the artnappers have asked that MacKenzie \u2013 much to the insurance guy\u2019s disgust \u2013 be the go-between.<\/p>\n

MacKenzie reluctantly accepts \u2013 he likes the young museum director and the forensic art expert who authenticated the lily \u2013 and then he\u2019s off on a convoluted path involving double crosses, Bosnians, rich guys, competing artnappers, and multiple claims of ownership of the Lily.\u00a0 MacKenzie\u2019s clear sightedness and quick action can get him into trouble but mostly it helps him cut through an enjoyable thicket of tricksters and con artists.<\/p>\n

Housewright\u2019s wit is every bit as sharp as Parker\u2019s, and as I read along, I was chuckling to myself over bits of dialogue and acerbic observations on MacKenzie\u2019s part.\u00a0 While this book doesn\u2019t have the emotional resonance of some of Houswright\u2019s earlier titles \u2013 notably Tin City, A Hard Ticket Home <\/em>or Madman on a Drum \u2013 <\/em>it still has the snap and crackle of great storytelling.\u00a0 I can\u2019t think of a better way to spend a couple of evenings than curled up with a new David Housewright novel.\u00a0 Check it out for yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou became Batman.\u201d \u201cHardly.\u201d Donatucci snorted.\u00a0 \u201cEverything but the cape and the car,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cTearing around, working with the cops; sometimes working against the cops; doing good for goodness sake\u2026\u201d Miss Robert B. Parker?\u00a0 There\u2019s really no need \u2013 give the excellent David Housewright a try to fulfill your Spenser jones.\u00a0 All things being … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-582","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\/582","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=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":584,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}