Showing The Blue Cheer by Ed Lynskey

Set in the remote mountains of West Virginia, this grittyÿcontemporary detective novel, Lynskey's second to feature former PI FrankJohnson (after 2006's The Dirt-Brown Derby), will remind many of suchmasters of hard-boiled prose as Loren Estleman. Johnson has sought to stillthe memories of a deadly encounter with the Ku Klux Klan by retreating tothe Appalachian town of Scarab, where people?and friends?arefew and far between. Johnson witnesses what appears to be a Stinger missilestrike against an unmanned aerial drone hovering above his yard, and hecalls on his closest local companion, Old Man Maddox, a retired CIA agent.