Blood is the Sky: An Alex McKnight Mystery (Alex McKnight Novels)

by Steve Hamilton

Book Overview

Before Blood is the Sky, the Alex McKnight series had already hit bestseller lists and won awards, but this novel took it to a whole new level. Set in the forests of northern Ontario, a land of savage... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312991509
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.9" x 1.0" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

A great read

Blood is the Sky recaptures that feeling of danger-at-every-turn excitement that got me hooked on this series when I read A Cold Day in Paradise. That was something that I thought was really lacking in North of Nowhere and Winter of the Wolf Moon. We also start to see some real development and progress in Alex as a character, and the way this book ends really makes you look forward to the next novel.

Blood Is The Sky is excellent!

Blood Is The Sky - Steve HamiltonThis was my first Alex McKnight novel and it blew me away.Alex McKnight, former Detroit police detective, beings to rebuild his previously destroyed (the last book maybe) log cabin in Paradise, Michigan, when a friend appears with bad news. Vinnie has lost his brother and needs Alex's help to find him. The two set off on a trail which takes them into the mountains and lakes of deepest Canada.Switched identities, fearsome bears, moose with bad road sense and a deep, dark conspiracy test Alex and Vinnie's resilience and relationship to the limit. At once sad and funny, Hamilton has a great way of describing his surroundings, in what is obviously a well researched or well loved locality. You can feel the cold clammy weather under your shirt and you can imagine the miles and miles of unbroken forestland ahead of you. The camaraderie between Alex and Vinnie is excellent and all the other characters are carefully drawn.In summary; great characters and an excellent plot, with a few twists to keep you on your feet, make this a sure fire award winner in the thriller genre.Highly recommended.Andrew Poole

Great Suspense

This is the fifth book in the Alex McKnight series about a former cop turned rental agent that works in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, on the shore of Lake Superior. We start out with Alex rebuilding his cabin that has burned to the ground. He is doing this in late fall and it appears he might not get it built before the winter snows start. Alex appears to be surviving from some dark things from his past and doesn't want to ask for help and is using this as a healing exercise.A friend of his by the name of Vinnie, an Ojibwa Indian, offers to help him rebuild the cabin and tells him that he is doing everything the wrong way. Vinnie doesn't show up to help Alex one day and Alex being the good friend that he is goes looking for him. Vinnie has given his brother Tom his driver's license, because Tom has had trouble with the law in the past. Tom needs this identification to leave the U S and enter Canada to take some Americans on a moose hunt. Tom doesn't return and Alex and Vinnie try to follow the trail of where he could be and why he hasn't returned home. This trip takes them all over the Interior of Canada to areas that are not reached by vehicle but by float planes and at times it appears they will not survive. Without some of the Indian survival techniques they might not. This book is filled with Indian Folk Lore, laughter and with tears, which in my book rates 5 stars. The suspense was the kind that keeps you turning the pages. Alex is a very troubled man in this book and you can feel his pain in the pages, but it also is a very healing experience for him and a very interesting transition happens. I am hopeful that Mr. Hamilton will be writing the sequel to this book as I would love to see the development of Alex and possibly even that of his adopted brother Vinnie.

strong McKnight tale

Though it is October and winter is establishing its frozen grip on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Alex McKnight begins rebuilding his devastated cabin. The ex everything (minor-league catcher, cop, and private investigator, et al) feels he must complete this job now as his humble abode, wrecked by a nut case, once belonged to his dad. His stoic best friend Vinnie "Red Sky" LeBlanc reluctantly helps though he thinks Alex should add asylum time to his resume.Works stops when Vinnie learns that his brother Tom, a professional guide currently escorting a group in the Canadian woods, is lost. This seems out of character for a skilled expert like Tom, which worries Vinnie as much as his concern that his sibling's parole officer might learn about the parole violation of crossing the border. Vinnie heads north while Alex follows his friend. Neither realizes that the biting cold is not the nightmare on this journey.Edgar and Shamus Award winner, Steve Hamilton has written his best mystery to date, which seems impossible, as the McKnight series is one of the best of the last few years. The story line twists and turns keeping the reader guessing as to what the heroes will find behind the next corner yet keeps a fast albeit cold pace without losing the prime plot. In spite of the frozen tundra, Alex seems warmer yet not mellower than he has previously appeared and the support cast provides the depth to a grand slam tale.Harriet Klausner

...Never Gives Up Her Dead...

This is another full-strength North Woods mystery from Edgar Award winning author Steve Hamilton. Sufficient background information is provided that a reader would not necessarily need to start at the beginning with "A Cold Day in Paradise," - but why miss all the fun and excitement? Alex McKnight, former Detroit cop, former Major League Baseball player for a day, currently cabin concierge cum reluctant investigator in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) signs on to help Ojibwa buddy Vinnie LeBlanc (Misquogeezhig - Red Sky) locate his wayward brother, last seen "guiding" a bunch of Detroit chimookomanag. This leads McKinight and LeBlanc through Northern Ontario - but it ain't no lightweight Bob Hope/Bing Crosby Road Movie. It's a taut tale, often bleak and gritty as the two, with help from friends and family back home in the UP, search for answers in the mysterious North. It's a fine addition to the Hamilton oeuvre. Reviewed by TundraVision