Jack Fredrickson

Thirty-one years after the fact, the new mayor of Grand Point, Illinois is asked to look into an unsolved murder case where two young people were killed near the local lovers lane. This case was so badly handled that the mayor must find out if this was bungled due to incompetence or was deliberately messed up to cover the murderers tracks. Anyone who had taken a closer look at this case usually turned up dead or was run out of town.

Based on a real-life murder case, the book is told from show more various viewpoints, including the seventeen year old victim herself, Betty Jo Dean and a reporter who is convinced the police are involved in a cover-up. The author pulls no punches and the book is full of dark and gruesome images. It took me awhile to settle into the author’s writing style, but once I did, I was fully engaged by this story.

Overall I found Silence the Dead to be an excellent read that pulls you in and holds onto you until the last page. Violent and shocking with plenty of twists and turns, the author paints a vivid picture of small town corruptness that holds a ring of truth. show less

Rating: 3* of five

The Book Report: The book description says:
“A Safe Place for Dying, the first in Jack Fredrickson’s highly acclaimed Dek Elstrom mystery series, was nominated for the Shamus Award for Best First Novel. Now, Chicago P.I. Dek Elstrom is back in an electrifying new mystery.

A lawyer calls Dek with a fast, seven-hundred dollar proposition. A dead client named Dek to execute her will. No matter that Dek didn’t know the woman. No matter, too, that the woman’s estate was show more only worth a few hundred. Happens all the time, the lawyer said.

To Dek Elstrom, broke and huddling in a cold stone turret in the middle of February, the sound of seven hundred falling down his chimney is louder than his voice of reason. He agrees, heads up to a hamlet ten miles north of nowhere. But instead of finding an easy-to-close estate, he finds blood and the markers of a shattered life. And something worse: links to the darkest part of his own past. He races to chase down leads to the killer, and his own ghost…before the dead woman is killed again.”

My Review: I began with laughs, continued with chuckles, snickers, and smirks, then trailed off into arched eyebrows, muttered instructions, exasperated ejaculations, and ended in irked silence.

That is NOT the trajectory an author or a reader wants. This reader planned a vituperative dissection of the failings of the book as he went along his ever-less-merry way, honing a few choice witticisms to a rusty, blunt jaggedness.

Why? Why was I, the reader most tolerant and understanding, the beau ideal of sweet-temperedness and kindly generosity...stop making those horrible sounds, people will think you're choking...suddenly transformed into a whole nestful of hornets in a really bad mood? Because, dammit, I was HAD. Things were set up in the first pages of the mystery that weren't delivered on, and things ANY IDIOT not even a P.I., with more than a week's work experience anyway, would think to ask went unasked, and then, please dear goddesses let me type this without screaming in fury again, THEN I will have you know, the writer uses FLIPPIN' FLASHBACKS to tell us the sad sad tale of Longago, and holy maloley does that bring this shitwagon to a sloshing, urpsome halt in its mysterious progress.

Leave aside that I knew who the killer was around p5. I expect that. I been treadin' this footpath longer than mosta y'all been alive. A mysterian who can surprise or, even better, confound me gets five stars and whole freakin' operas of praise. So no, I don't expect to need to work too hard. I don't read mysteries for the puzzle-solving pleasure, but for the orderliness, the justice that is done, and the way the story is told.

But COME ON!!! This sleuth, Dek Elstrom, is given a build-up as a wildly successful investigator, and he fails to ask ANY BACKGROUND QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS CONTACTS?! Oh. Please. I don't care that he's given a fee up front (which, later, becomes another sticking point and a large logical lapse). Any, and I mean any, investigator would look at his sources pretty carefully.

In the normal course of events, then, this review would be a flame job out of literary, well, failure to launch shall we euphemize. It isn't, well not too much of one, for one reason and one reason only: Dek says, when served hot tea in a daisy-patterned cup, is asked, “How does your tea taste?” (There's a reason for that specific locution, but it's a little spoilery, so go with me here.) “Like a funeral home smells,” replies Dek.

Yes. Exactly. One entire star restored for putting your finger on the nub of something I've wanted to find words for for a long time.

Would I recommend the series, of which this is volume 2, with a third volume (Hunting Sweetie Rose)out this year? Not so much. The writing, apart from the genius moment above, is amusing, and consistently easy on the eyes; the plot is for poo; the net effect is ~meh~ minus, but some days that's okay. It's not a flee flee for your lives dear goddesses what are you still doing here run away kind of a book. It's not a sit here right here dammit and read this and love it kind of a book. It's just a barely adequate midlist means of wiling away a few hours. And as I've said, that can be enough for anyone some days.

I guess today was one of mine. show less

Kill Her Twice by Jack Fredrickson is a highly recommended hard-boiled detective story set by Chicago.

Private investigator Dek Elstrom is hunting for a lost cat with a $100 reward when Martin Tripp wants to hire him to prove he didn't kill Sara Jansen. Tripp has already stood trial and been acquitted for Sara's murder. The problem is that he says he can't find a job now due to his infamy and he thinks Sara was afraid of something before she died. Elstrom isn't exactly eager to take on this show more case and he thinks Tripp is guilty of her murder, but he can use the $200 Tripp pushes on him. Once he begins to causally investigate, he discovers that a whole lot more was going on in the corrupt River City.

On the one hand I do appreciate an involved and complicated hard-boiled detective case that resembles a tale of gangsters from the 1930s. The description that Kill Her Twice is a Windy City noir with a distinctly retro feel is apropos. A story that actually tries to be timeless is appreciated and to be applauded. On the other hand, elderly women being lewd in a corrupt town is just not my thing. If I set that aside, during the investigation the suspense does build incrementally and the atmosphere becomes tense and full of suspicion in Kill Her Twice.

This can be read as a stand-alone novel even though it is the eighth book featuring Dek Elstrom. As my first Elstrom book I didn't feel behind or out of pace with the character and plot. Suspicions grow with each page and each new character introduced. There is also a humorous element to the novel, which helps in creating the noir-feeling as it propels the action forward. There are plenty of characters to draw your suspicion and entertain you, a tense atmosphere that grows as each new development, and complications to keep you guessing.

The narrative is told through Elstrom's first person point-of-view which means you are privy to his private thoughts and perceptions. He is an intelligent character, personable while also jaded with the corruption around him. He knows how the system works and how to use it to his advantage. 3.5 rounded up

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Severn House via NetGalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2022/04/kill-her-twice.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4643066098 show less

Down on his luck Dek Elstrom is being given a chance to redeem himself by doing a little PI work for the folks who run the exclusive Crystal Waters gated community, of which he was recently a resident. After an extortion letter and explosion, it doesn't seem that Crystal Waters is that safe after all. And even though his ex-wife, Amanda, is safely off in France, her (their former) home is sitting there unoccupied, with many works of fine art that she has alwyas said she would save before show more calling 911. This is the first in a series and I would certainly check in with Dek again.

There is a fun side-story about Dek's present home. After being thrown out of Crystal Waters, he decides to try to rehab his grandfather's (a former bootlegger) residence. The city is difficult, many old taxes are due and they want to label it historic. A stand-off ensues as Dek continues to rehab and live in the limestone turret. show less