Synopses & Reviews
It's late summer, 1972, up in California's redwood forests. They seem a ""safe and wondrous place,"" but some of Evergreen's population is growing pot up in the trees and others are bent on stealing it. Then there's the coming folk festival, a jamboree bringing in musicians, fans, war protestors--a ferment of flower power (the local hippies), raw power (the local biker gangs, notably the Cossacks), and the power of the law (local and federal). Skirting the edges are shades of the Manson Family and the Mexican Mafia. Clifford Hickey, scheduled to perform a guitar gig at the festival before trucking off to law school, arrives at his brother Alvaro's peaceful woodland campsite. And within moments Alvaro, combat trained, is faced with six armed men in badges crashing the camp, and runs. Clifford, surprised, is arrested and brutally cuffed, so brutally he fears for his hands. He then learns that a young man, one of the sheriffs' nephews, has just been murdered. Alvaro is the posse's quarry. So here's Clifford, on the brink of adult life, pitched into not just a murder but what develops into a duel between the Hickeys--for his father and mother soon drive up--and the law, between the Hickeys and the Cossacks--who seemingly have their own agenda for Alvaro and, between the Hickeys and the locals, and finally between the Hickeys and their own past. Ken Kuhlken won St. Martin's Best First Private Eye Novel contest for the first Hickey family case, The Loud Adios.
Review
..."thoughtful and exciting.... Among its other virtues, it captures summer 1972 and its motley crew--outlaw bikers, war protestors, marijuana growers and users--to understated perfection." -- Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune
"Readers will enjoy this tale that captures the history and atmosphere of 1970s California as well as the complex dynamics of a fascinating family" --Booklist
"Crime, punishment and redemption. Kuhlken's sixth is by far his best." --Kirkus Reviews
"A compelling storyline with the right amount of suspense will keep readers guessing" --Library Journal
"Kuhlken brings the social and cultural scene of the period vividly to life." --Publisher's Weekly
"Music, marijuana, and murder provide Clifford with more than he ever bargained for, but it's an entertaining farrago for the reader." --Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine
About the Author
Ken Kuhlken's stories have appeared in Esquire and numerous other magazines and anthologies, been honorably mentioned in Best American Short Stories and earned a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. His novels are Midheaven (finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award for best first fiction book, 1980), and the Hickey family mysteries The Loud Adios (St. Martin's/PWA Press Best First PI Novel, 1989), The Venus Deal, The Angel Gang, The Do-Re-Mi (Shamus Award finalist), and The Vagabond Virgins (February 2008).