I always say if I recommend a book to family, that’s the highest recommendation I can make. Now that I’ve read David Housewright’s second Mac McKenzie book, Tin City, I told my brother-in-law to read it. I’m hooked, and I suspect he will be, too.

It all starts as if it could be ripped from today’s headlines; pollinators are dying. Mr. Mosley, an old Marine buddy of Mac’s father, is a beekeeper, and his honey bees are dying in one of his hive locations. Despite his fear of bees, Mac agrees to investigate. It seems like a simple job that a grad student in the agriculture department at the University of Minnesota can work on. However, when she’s shot at while looking into pesticide use, the simple task turns deadly. A new neighbor, Frank Crosetti, has a shotgun, and isn’t afraid to use it. But, when he disappears, Mac connects a terrible rape and a murder to Crosetti. And, Mac is so angry he leaves his earthly goods with a friend, and goes underground to search for the killer.

Tin City is a fast-paced PI mystery with a morally gray man who just wants to help his friends, but so much goes wrong. He wants to be a good guy, but that doesn’t always work when the villains have no compunctions. It’s interesting to see his recognition that he’s lonely when he’s underground, and he knows he has friends when he’s himself, Mac McKenzie. I can root for this man who just wants to help a friend in trouble.

On a personal note, I can also root for the man who feels this way. ‘I’ve always loved libraries, loved the very idea of them. They’re citadels of peace and quiet and intellectual freedom and civilization – commodities that are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. They are, in a word, the most “democratic” places on earth, although they’ve been finding it harder to remain that way.’ Thank you, David Housewright and Mac McKenzie.

David Housewright’s website is https://www.davidhousewright.com/

Tin City by David Housewright. St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2005. 288p.

FTC Full Disclosure – Library book