Seamy small town thriller

books:


	• The Killing Moon: A Novel Chuck Hogan Scribner, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A good one...

despite the killer being known early. The characterizations and small town detail hold the reader. This author holds promise and writes with authority about Massachusetts.

loved this

this book is great. in fact, all of chuck hogan's books are suspensful and well written. i'd recommend them all.

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Hogan is Great

Hogan is as good as Crais, Coben and Connelly. He captures the flavor of a small dead milltown and the hopelessness of its people (reminds one of Russo's towns) while spinning the web of a terrific mystery.

The mystery builds slowly. The reader knows immediately that there is the good new guy on the police force - Maddox - and the police force is lousy with corruption. It is also apparent that Maddox is the hometown wonder boy who left years ago who returned for his mother's funeral. No one knows why he stayed and became a part-time policeman. Slowly, the plot developes. It is told in the perspective of many characters, which keeps the book moving even as events plod too slowly for all involved - good guys and bad guys alike.

Eventually the mystery unfolds and then the book, which was tight with tension, flies into a fast-paced action-packed ending without being contrived. This change of pacing, which Hogan does so smoothly, separates this mystery from run-of-the-mill entries in this genre.

The characters are all good. Maddox in particular is interesting. Although close-mouthed (like so many good heroes) he is the classic "still waters runs deep" Gary Cooper type.

This is highly recommended. Well-written mysteries with good plots are always a great find.

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Death in a Small Town

Donald Maddox is a rookie, a part-time, auxiliary policeman in a town he describes as "full of nothing-to-do, this tiny rural map-smudge in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, a fading and forsaken hamlet named Black Falls." He had left Black Falls, where his father had been a cop, fifteen years before, after receiving a college scholarship and, now 33 years old, has returned after his mother's death and lingered, to the amazement of most of the citizenry, who can't believe anyone who'd actually been able to get out had returned voluntarily. With 1,758 inhabitants, the town had virtually died after its paper mills closed down 20 years before - it is "a well of desperation hidden deep in the valley; pain-filled voices that go unheard," with "pockets of beauty amid acres of neglect."

Maddox was a legacy, put on the job by "Pinty," a town selectman--a cop there for much of his life and Maddox' father's partner when he was on the force, before he "had been stupid enough to get himself killed in the line of duty in such a sleepy town as this." The soul-deadening atmosphere is brought to vivid life by the author in a distinctively offbeat and wonderful style.

The residents are, understandably, mostly damaged souls. The worst symptom of the general malaise is the police department, with a budget so small the "uniforms" consisted of a t-shirt and cap, and corruption the extent of which this reader was totally unprepared for. When a local resident is brutally murdered, state homicide detectives take jurisdiction, and the ugly secrets of Black Falls begin to come to light, including Maddox' own.

This is the fourth book by Chuck Hogan, and I wish it hadn't taken me so long to discover this author. "The Killing Moon" is a wonderful read, and it is recommended.

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Seamy small town thriller

Chuck Hogan's "The Killing Moon", a convoluted thriller based on the strange circumstances occuring in the small dying rural Massachusetts town of Black Falls, reads like a written version of TV's "Twin Peaks". Homeboy Donny Maddox recipient of a town sponsored college scholarship returns to Black Falls after a 15 year hiatus. The town is in a state of decline since the closing of the mill some years ago, which providede the main source of employment. At the urgting of now retired police chief emeritus Pinty, a close personal friend, he joins the local police force on a part time basis.

Maddox soon discovers that corruption runs rampant within the local fuzz headed by the Pail brothers, Bucky and Eddie. Maddox is soon immersed in investigating a series of crimes involving violence and drugs. Clues point to a local man and sexual offender Dill Sinclair as being the driving force, however his whereabouts are unknown. When local new age internet salesman Randall Frond is discovered brutally murdered, the cesspool of town depravity boils over. The state police lead by macho man trooper Leo Hess are called in.

As the investigation continues, we discover that Maddox might have ulterior motives for his presence in town. As the state police and Maddox dig deeper, the full extent of the town's secrets become revealed.

Hogan jumping from one character to the other gives us bits and pieces of information to aid us in unravelling the mysteries behind this bizarre town.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Donald Maddox has returned to his sleepy Massachusetts hometown after fifteen years away. Although he has no law enforcement background, he finds a job as an auxiliary patrolman -- on a local police force known to inspire more fear than trust. When the brutal murder of a local resident shatters the isolation of this forgotten place, triggering the arrival of state police homicide detectives and a townwide manhunt, both the local cops and Maddox appear to have something to hide. As the tightly wound mystery that is Maddox's past begins to unravel, he becomes ensnared in a deadly conspiracy that ultimately threatens his life, as well as the lives of those around him.

A brilliantly plotted page-turner told with soul-deep characterization, crisp pacing, and unflinching realism, The Killing Moon proves Chuck Hogan as the unrivaled master of gritty suspense.

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