Misery Bay
Written by Steve Hamilton
Narrated by Dan John Miller
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
On a frozen January night, a young man loops one end of a long rope over the branch of a tree. The other end he ties around his neck. A snowmobiler will find him thirty-six hours later, his lifeless eyes staring out at the endless cold water of Lake Superior. It happens in a lonely corner of the Upper Peninsula, in a place they call Misery Bay.
Alex McKnight does not know this young man, and he won't even hear about the suicide until another cold night, two months later and 250 miles away, when the door to the Glasgow Inn opens and the last person Alex would ever expect to see comes walking in to ask for his help.
What seems like a simple quest to find a few answers will turn into a nightmare of sudden violence and bloody revenge and a race against time to catch a ruthless killer. McKnight knows all about evil, of course, having faced down a madman who killed his partner and left a bullet next to his heart. Mobsters, drug dealers, hit men - he's seen them all, and they've taken away almost everything he's ever loved. But none of them could have prepared him for the darkness he's about to face.
Steve Hamilton
Steve Hamilton was born and raised in Detroit, and graduated from the University of Michigan where he won the prestigious Hopwood Award for fiction. In 2006, he won the Michigan Author Award for his outstanding body of work. His novels have won numerous awards and media acclaim beginning with the very first in the Alex McKnight series, A Cold Day in Paradise, which won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin's Press Award for Best First Mystery by an Unpublished Writer. Once published, it went on to win the MWA Edgar and the PWA Shamus Awards for Best First Novel, and was short-listed for the Anthony and Barry Awards. His book The Lock Artist is the winner of the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Novel. Hamilton currently works for IBM in upstate New York where he lives with his wife Julia and their two children.
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Reviews for Misery Bay
129 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There has always been an uneasy partnership between Sault Ste. Marie police Chief Roy Maven and ex Detroit police officer, reluctent P.I. Alex McKnight. However this time Chief Maven needs Alex to do him a favor, to look into the apparent suicide of his friends son. His friend just wants to know what was running through his son's mind when he tied the knot and hung himself in the small, bleak town of Misery Bay on the shore of Lake Superor. What appears to be a simple request soon turns into a race to catch a ruthless killer.
This is the eighth book in this series. New readers will enjoy the book by itself but I urge you to go back and start at the beginning with "Cold Day In Paradise" to better aquaint you with the characters and the storylines. He paints a very accruate picture of Michigan's UP... 18 inches of snow in April? Oh yeah it happens!
As for me...I am a huge fan of this series and will be picking up the next book from the libray soon. Oh wait, I already have it. 5 stars for an excellent read as always. Thank you Steve. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The latest from Steve Hamilton finds sharper-than-a-serpent's-tooth Alex McNight unwillingly paired with Paradise, Michigan's local sheriff, Roy Maven, who asks him to help investigate the suicide of a son's friend, which occurred at the aptly-named Misery Bay. Quicker than you can turn the page, things get hairy and rather suspicious. The body count rises, circumstances become puzzling, and things aren't adding up for Alex fast enough to stop the corpses from piling up in this fast-paced, suspenseful mystery. The (uneasy) chemistry between McNight and Maven is the source of some truly great dialogue, as are some of McNight's exchanges with some of the more colorful supporting characters. There are some truly great one-liners here that add color to this story that takes place in a landscape bleak enough to complement the dark plot of murder and suicide.This one is definitely complex enough to satisfy the most demanding reader: red herrings abound, the voice of the mysterious killer is eerily present in snapshots interspersed throughout the book, and there is a wide-ranging cast of characters that encompasses everybody from wet-behind-the-ears college students to seasoned highway patrolmen. Alex's demons flutter at the edges of the narrative as well, adding another layer of psychological depth to the story.Recommended to series fans and to first-time readers of Hamilton.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a good series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wonderful descriptions of the upper peninsula, and a remarkable first murder mystery. This will teach me to avoid entire genres.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The latest from Steve Hamilton finds sharper-than-a-serpent's-tooth Alex McNight unwillingly paired with Paradise, Michigan's local sheriff, Roy Maven, who asks him to help investigate the suicide of a son's friend, which occurred at the aptly-named Misery Bay. Quicker than you can turn the page, things get hairy and rather suspicious. The body count rises, circumstances become puzzling, and things aren't adding up for Alex fast enough to stop the corpses from piling up in this fast-paced, suspenseful mystery. The (uneasy) chemistry between McNight and Maven is the source of some truly great dialogue, as are some of McNight's exchanges with some of the more colorful supporting characters. There are some truly great one-liners here that add color to this story that takes place in a landscape bleak enough to complement the dark plot of murder and suicide.This one is definitely complex enough to satisfy the most demanding reader: red herrings abound, the voice of the mysterious killer is eerily present in snapshots interspersed throughout the book, and there is a wide-ranging cast of characters that encompasses everybody from wet-behind-the-ears college students to seasoned highway patrolmen. Alex's demons flutter at the edges of the narrative as well, adding another layer of psychological depth to the story.Recommended to series fans and to first-time readers of Hamilton.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've been reading this series in order since last summer, and this 8th installment is the best yet, IMO. It all begins when an old adversary asks McKnight's help investigating the suicide of a friend's son in an isolated spot called Misery Bay. Before long, the body count starts piling up.As always in this series, the sense of place -- and of the Michigan Upper Peninsula weather -- is rich.I was in the middle of a good mystery when my name came up on the library hold list for this book. I just started looking at it, and I couldn't put it down.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hamilton once again creates a bleak plot to match the oppressiveness of a typical Northern Michigan winter that lasts well into April. Misery Bay is a tiny community on the western side of the Keweenaw Peninsula. The beach area is more or less deserted on a warm sunny day in midsummer and would be relentlessly grim in the winter. That was where the first body of a college student was found hanging from the branches of a tree facing Lake Superior, a supposed suicide. Alex McKnight was asked by the father to find out what his son's motivation for taking his own life might have been. There is much driving around in the dark of night across the Upper Peninsula as McKnight investigates this...and then some other crimes that could be related. There are as many twists and turns in the story as there are in the lightly traveled back roads of sparsely populated areas. Hang on to your seat and follow Alex and his nemesis Police Chief Maven as they join forces with the FBI to hunt down a possible serial killer.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good to have Alex back. Compelling story. I always love to read these books when it is roasting in Florida. Keep them coming.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5AUTHOR: HAMILTON, SteveTITLE: Misery BayDATE READ: 01/01/16RATING: 5/AGENRE/PUB DATE/PUBLISHER/# OF PGS Crime Fiction/2011/ St. Martin's Publishing / 294 pgs SERIES/STAND-ALONE: #8 Alex McKnightCHARACTERS AUTHOR: Alex McKnight former Detroit police detective now working as PI in the UPTIME/PLACE: UP/presentFIRST LINES " It is the third night of January, 2 hours past midnight, & everyone is in bed except this man." COMMENTS: Good to be back in the UP w/ Alex McKnight. This was a good mystery that kept me wondering. Crimes were brutal but just a little different … police officers were being killed after their child's death -- that appeared to be a suicide. Alex McKnight was always one step ahead of the FBI in sussing out the connections.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Alex McKnight and Police Chief Roy Maven, have never seen eye to eye, or agreed on anything other than their mutual dislike for each other. So, Alex is taken aback when the Sheriff approaches him asking to help out an old partner from early State Trooper days. It appears the man's son has committed suicide, hanging himself in a desolate location called Misery Bay, and the father is seeking some type of closure or answers as to why his son killed himself. When the father is discovered murdered, both Alex and Roy team up to chase down leads, and find themselves on the opposite side of FBI agents who claim there is no case.The reader is treated to an increasingly complex weaving of characters and clues while Alex doggedly pursues the case. Foe becomes ally, and there are plenty of twists and turns to leave the audience wondering right up to the ending.Steve has done a spectacular job showing how the smallest of decisions in one's past can be perceived differently, and even forgotten as life unfolds. On one hand we are treated to a well rehearsed thriller, executed flawlessly by a master storyteller, and on the other a sad tale of human fallacy and lost hope.I'm hoping we see a lot more of Alex in the future.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A book that is set in a place you live or at least visited always seems more interesting and the upper peninsula in Michigan is one of my favorite places. Yet even if I had never been there Hamilton does such a great job that one can feel the extreme cold and at times the desolation and loneliness of living there. AS usual he is consistent and keeps his storylines interesting as well as his characters. Great mystery with many twists and turns, I have never been disappointed reading one of his novels.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This one has more twists than a hangman's noose. Alex McKnight is a part time private investigator and a full time retired Detroit police officer with a bullet lodged near his heart. He is reluctantly drawn from his rustic cabin in Paradise, Michigan, into the investigation of an apparent suicide of a young college student. The father, a U. S. Marshal, just wants to know why. Why would his son hang himself? Before Alex can report back from Misery Bay, the scene of the suicide, he finds the body of the marshal murdered in the home of a local police chief. With the image of the slain officer still in his mind, Alex learns of a report of a state trooper's son committing suicide by shooting himself in the head. A weird coincidence or something more? Frozen Upper Michigan warms up as McKnight turns up the heat on a murder case that has every law enforcement agency from the City Police, the State Troopers, to the F.B.I. investigating this mysterious series of deaths. Little do they know this is only the beginning. Another great mystery in the Alex McKnight series, see A Cold Day in Paradise, from this Edgar Award winning author. Provided for review by the well read folks at Amazon Vine.