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    Hurt Machine
    Hurt Machine
    Hurt Machine
    Ebook341 pages5 hours

    Hurt Machine

    By Reed Farrel Coleman

    4/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    At a pre-wedding party for his daughter Sarah, Moe Prager is approached by his ex-wife and former PI partner Carmella Melendez. It seems Carmella's estranged sister Alta has been murdered, but no one in New York City seems to care. Why? Alta, a FDNY EMT, and her partner had months earlier refused to give assistance to a dying man at a fancy downtown eatery.

    Moe decides to help Carmella as a means to distract himself from his own life-and-death struggle. Making headway on the case is no mean feat as no one, including Alta's partner Maya Watson, wants to cooperate. Moe chips away until he discovers a cancer roiling just below the surface, a cancer whose symptoms include bureaucratic greed, sexual harassment, and blackmail. But is any of it connected to Alta's brutal murder?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGallery Books
    Release dateNov 18, 2011
    ISBN9781440532009
    Hurt Machine
    Author

    Reed Farrel Coleman

    REED FARREL COLEMAN is a two-time Edgar Award nominee. He has also received the Macavity, Barry and Anthony Awards. To find out more visit: www.reedcoleman.com

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    Reviews for Hurt Machine

    4/5

    32 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is the 7th book in the Moe Prager series. Moe is old, has a cancerous tumor in his stomach, and hasn’t worked a case in years, but he is still tough. When his ex-wife and ex-partner in his PI business, Carmella, asks him to look into the death of her sister Alta, he does it much to the disapproval of his current girlfriend and in spite of his daughter’s impending wedding. Alta was an EMT. She and her partner became pariahs in the city when they refused to help a heart attack victim and he died. Soon after, she is murdered. There is no shortage of suspects, but Moe finds that everyone he talks to, even Carmella, is hiding something. What were they doing in a high-priced restaurant in the first place and why didn’t they help? Moe, as he usually does, blunders about, but keeps at it until the pieces start to come together. In the meantime, he has plenty of time to muse about his cancer and whether people are a hurt machine. This is a solid series. Moe is an interesting character, cynical, fallible, tough and given to introspection. He also has had to work through some difficult interpersonal relationships and tragedies. I have enjoyed the series and will read the final two installments.
    • 5/5
      In Hurt Machine, Reed Farrel Coleman has Moe Prager's guts in an uproar, both figuratively and literally. The tight plotting, great characters and Brooklyn setting will have your guts in an uproar too as Moe faces down his greatest challenges ever. This is writing at its best. Make sure you read it.
    • 4/5
      This was a pretty good book that I downloaded for my Kindle (free read). Moe Prager gets contacted by his former wife and business partner Carmella to investigate the death of her estranged sister. Moe and Carmella didn't have a friendly partling but he agrees to look into it. He was recently diagnosed with cancer and is facing surgery and treatment; so he is tying up loose ends in his life. If you like a good thriller this is for you. I will look into reading previous books with this character.
    • 5/5
      According to his chronicler, Boswell, Dr. Johnson once said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." This latest Moe Prager novel opens with the unconventional detective and wine-shop owner receiving the ominous suggestion from his doctor that Moe might want to get his house in order. Hard on the heels of this unwelcome news, his ex-wife and business partner shows up, with a request that Prager look into the murder of her estranged sister, a woman held in popular contempt across the city. To say nothing of the preparations to be made for his daughter's upcoming wedding.Concentrate? Very difficult. The book proceeds with Coleman's meticulous style, as Prager tries to hold at bay thoughts of mortality while digging into the murder. Along the way he is threatened by firefighters, stonewalled by his client, pressured from the city power-that-be, philosophizing on his own place and what, if anything, really matters. The plot builds line upon line to a conclusion that is satisfying, though the reader is left to wonder about the future - as Moe himself no doubt does.Highly recommended.
    • 2/5
      (Moe Prager series #6) I'm about done looking to this series for anything more than more of the same. This seems like a good crime novel that wasn't developed into something better. Instead I see a writer punching the proverbial clock.
    • 5/5
      In seven books, Reed Farrel Coleman has taken Moe Prager from the 1970s to present day, aging him from his 20s to his 60s. Many authors having taken many more books to age their protagonists less. Yet, this series is still cohesive and readers don’t feel like they’ve missed anything.Hurt Machine takes place two years after Innocent Monster. It begins with Moe emerging from his oncologist’s office. The news is not good. He’s outside a restaurant where a local reception dinner is being held for his daughter’s upcoming wedding, several weeks away in Vermont, when he sees his estranged ex-wife/ex-PI partner, Carmella. Her sister, Alta, has been murdered and she pleads for his help in finding the killer. She assumes it relates to an incident in which Alta and her on the job partner, Maya, EMTs, refused to help a restaurant patron who was having a heart attack.Of course there’s more underlying the brutal murder and maybe more astute readers would see the ending earlier in the book than I did, but I didn’t see it coming. There are enough twists and turns and misdirections to delight even the most stubborn mystery reader.But it’s Moe that steals the show. Always philosophical, he’s even more so as he contemplates illness and possible death, the shortness of life. This book is all Moe. Our favorite characters make fleeting if any appearances: Israel Roth, Sarah, Carmella (maybe because many of them have died and not been replaced by new favorites). However, Coleman has brought in an intriguing new character, Detective Fugua (a new series in the making if I were Reed Farrel Coleman….hint, hint, Reed!).Coleman has said that he’s working on a prequel and possibly a ninth book. While there are certain detectives whose authors should send them out while they’re on top (Mr. Connelly, it’s time to retire Harry Bosch and Robert Parker should have retired Spenser years ago, really), I personally am not ready to see Moe Prager drift off into the sunset.So, as I’ve said before…treat yourself. Start with Walking the Perfect Square and read the series through to Hurt Machine. You too will have a new favorite gumshoe.

    Book preview

    Hurt Machine - Reed Farrel Coleman

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