Blood Is the Sky Read online

  Outside, a northern wind picked up. It was cold out there. It was cold and dark.

  “You’ve been through it,” she said. “You know how it feels.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I had to do it alone.”

  She kept looking at me. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve,” I said. “You feel like making a toast?”

  “Depends on what kind of champagne you brought. Is it any good?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “I’ll get the glasses,” she said. “Don’t go away.”

  I didn’t. And that’s how it began.

  Happy New Year.

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks Titles by Steve Hamilton

  Ice Run

  Blood Is the Sky

  North of Nowhere

  The Hunting Wind

  Winter of the Wolf Moon

  A Cold Day in Paradise

  CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR

  EDGAR AWARD–WINNING AUTHOR

  STEVE HAMILTON

  BLOOD IS THE SKY

  “Heartily delivers on suspense, atmosphere, and riveting action.”

  —Denver Post

  “Hamilton never misses a beat.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “Hamilton won an Edgar and an Anthony in 1998 for A Cold Day in Paradise. This smart, brisk, twisty tale is even better.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred)

  “A reader’s delight: a fast-paced, breathtaking adventure for which a night’s sleep gladly will be sacrificed. Blood Is the Sky is a stunner.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A grand-slam tale.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A fine writer, [Hamilton] excels at describing the lonely locale as well as depicting such memorable characters.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Blood Is the Sky is brilliant. Some books you can’t put down because the story is so compelling. Some books you can’t put down because the prose is so spellbinding. And then, every once in a while, you read a book that combines both. Steve Hamilton has written the best private eye novel—heck, maybe the best novel—I’ve read this year.”

  —Harlan Coben, author of Left for Dead

  “Steve Hamilton writes tough, passionate novels with a strong emphasis on heart and humanity. His latest flat-out smokes. This is crime writing at its very best.”

  —George Pelecanos, author of Hell to Pay and Soul Circus

  “Easily Steve Hamilton’s best novel so far—therefore an automatic book of the year. Everything is here—his trademark sense of place, vivid, resonant characters, and a plot that will break your heart.”

  —Lee Child, author of Persuader

  “Blood Is the Sky takes us into the dark and brooding heart of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It’s got everything—tension, action, surprises. Alex McKnight is a believable hero who can also tell a good story.”

  —T. Jefferson Parker, author of Silent Joe and Black Water

  “This book is relentless. I had to read it straight through. The best mysteries are about the past coming up out of the ground and grabbing the present by the throat. Steve Hamilton knows this. Blood Is the Sky fills that bill and then some. This is his best yet.”

  —Michael Connelly, author of Chasing the Dime

  NORTH OF NOWHERE

  “Hamilton[’s] … tensile prose … reflects the dramatic, often violent contradictions of people who live on the edge of the world.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Superb! Hamilton keeps the action fast and furious and manages to keep the reader off balance.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A brisk, well-plotted tale.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A bracing, sometimes sidesplitting … novel.”

  —Booklist

  “Agreeable plot twists (the revelation of whodunit really is a surprise) and thoughtfully engages some larger questions about wilderness real estate developments and the limits of friendship.”

  —Washington Post

  “A complex, solid story enhanced by unpredictable twists and turns. Psychological suspense and an excellent chase scene propel North of Nowhere to its most rewarding conclusion.”

  —Florida Sun-Sentinel

  “Hamilton packs plenty of hardscrabble characters and pithy dialogue into a nifty mystery … there’s nothing like a bit of Paradise—Michigan, that is.”

  —Columbia State

  “North of Nowhere has a twisty plot with genuine surprises, but it’s the understanding of the people who live in the Upper Peninsula and the love for both the harshness and beauty of the Lake Superior shoreline that make this another good entry in a terrific series.”

  —Flint Journal

  “A fast-paced book with wonderful characters … Hamilton writes great prose.”

  —ReviewTheEvidence.com

  “A robust entry … Alex is at his best and the support cast augments the isolated feeling of going north of nowhere that shows why Steve Hamilton is an award-winning author.”

  —Internet Bookwatch

  THE HUNTING WIND

  “Un-put-downable … exceptionally entertaining.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Hamilton spins a smooth yarn.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “The surprise ending delivers a satisfying jolt.”

  —Booklist

  “Compelling.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Easy-going, smoothly written tale.”

  —Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer

  “[The Hunting Wind] is to the same standard … [as] Hamilton’s Edgar-winning A Cold Day in Paradise.”

  —Boston Globe

  WINTER OF THE WOLF MOON

  “The isolated, wintry location jives well with Hamilton’s pristine prose, independent protagonist, and ingenious plot. An inviting sequel to his Edgar Award-winning first novel, A Cold Day in Paradise.”

  —Library Journal

  “[Hamilton’s] protagonist is likable as well as durable, his raffish cast is sharply observed and entertaining. Moreover, he knows how to pace a story, something of a lost art in recent crime fiction.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “There’s almost as much action in the book as there is snow—and there’s heaps of white flakes. But Hamilton’s first-person narrative has a lyric cadence and thoughtful tone that nicely counterpoints all the rough-and-tumble stuff.”

  —Orlando Sentinel

  “In his second novel, Steve Hamilton continues the high standards he set in his Edgar-winning debut, A Cold Day in Paradise. Winter of the Wolf Moon is an entertaining tale buoyed by solid plotting, wry humor and brisk pacing … characters are so well shaped they hit the scene breathing. Alex embodies the traits of a good private eye—a loner, stubborn and haunted by his past … no matter what the season outside, Winter of the Wolf Moon has the depth of winter between its pages, and its exciting story will keep you warm.”

  —Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

  A COLD DAY IN PARADISE

  “Ingenious … Hamilton unreels the mystery with a mounting tension many an old pro might envy.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Hamilton combines crisp, clear writing, wily, colorful characters and an offbeat locale in an impressive debut.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[A] well-plotted and tightly written thriller.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “A good combination of crafty and colorful characters, an offbeat locale in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and really crisp, clear writing … there are several plots, all woven together very well. Alex is a very likable character, as are other townspeople, and the writing moves very swiftly, making this an easy and enjoyable book to read.”

  —Sullivan County Democrat

  “PI Alex McKnight’s ‘mean streets’ are the deep pine woods and the small lakeside towns of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and her
e the past comes to find him, chilling as the November wind. A must for PI and suspense fans.”

  —Charles Todd, author of Wings of Fire

  “His story is so fundamentally sound and stylistically rounded that Hamilton ought to be teaching whatever writing course he may have taken toward producing this novel.”

  —Jeremiah Healy, author of The Stalking of

  Sheilah Quinn and The Only Good Lawyer

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  from Steve Hamilton’s next mystery

  ICE RUN

  Available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  In a land of hard winters, the hardest of all is the winter that fills you with false hope. It’s the kind of winter that starts out easy. You get the white Christmas, but it’s a light snow, six inches tops, the stuff that makes everything look like a postcard. The sun comes out during the day. You can take your coat off if you’re working hard enough. The nights are quiet. The stars shine between the silver clouds. You celebrate New Year’s. You make resolutions. It snows again and you run the plow. You shovel. You chop wood. You sit inside at night by the fire. You say to yourself, this ain’t so bad. A little cold weather is good for a man. It makes you feel alive.

  That’s what I was thinking. I admit it. Although maybe I had other reasons to believe this winter would be easy. Maybe this winter I could be forgiven for letting my guard down. One good look at the calendar would have put my head back on straight. Spring doesn’t come until May, Alex. Which meant—what, winter had ten rounds left in a fifteen-round fight? That was plenty of time. That was all the time in the world.

  When the storm finally hit, I was down the road at the Glasgow Inn. Jackie had the fire going and had just made a big pot of his famous beef stew. He had the cold Molsons, bought at the Beer Store across the bridge and stored just for me in his cooler, for the simple reason that American beer cannot compare to beer bottled and sold in Canada. That and a Red Wings game on the television over the bar were all I needed. On that night, anyway. I had plans for the next day. I had big plans. But for now I was happy just to be with Jackie, and to do everything I could to slowly drive him insane.

  “Alex, you’re gonna tell me what’s going on,” he said for the third time. He was an old Scot, God love him, with the slightest hint of a burr in his speech. Born in Glasgow sixty-odd years ago, the son of a tugboat captain, he came to Michigan when he was a teenager. He had been here ever since, eventually opening up the Glasgow Inn. It looked a lot more like a Scottish pub than an American bar, which meant you could spend the whole evening there without getting depressed or drunk or both.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “Like hell you don’t. You’ve been bouncing in here, saying hello and how are you. Smiling and laughing.”

  “I’m happy to see you,” I said. “Is that so bad?”

  “Since when are you happy about anything?” He gave me that Popeye squint of his. “It’s January, for God’s sake.”

  “Almost February,” I said. “How many inches have we had?”

  “Don’t even say that, Alex. You’ll jinx it. You know a storm’s coming.”

  “I had another cancellation today. There’s not enough snow to ride on.” This time of year, snowmobiling was the biggest business inParadise, Michigan. Hell, it was the only business. Every rental cabin in town, and every motel room, was booked months in advance. On most January nights, Jackie’s place would be crawling with men from downstate, most of them with their big puffy snowsuits zipped down to the waist.

  And that sound. The whine of the engines, coming from every direction. It always drove me crazy. But this night was silent.

  “Tonight,” he said. “We’ll get buried. You watch.”

  I shrugged and looked up at the hockey game. “Bring it on.”

  “And what’s with the salad, anyway?”

  “What salad?”

  “Lettuce and vegetables, Alex. That salad.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “For dinner. You had a salad.”

  “I had the stew, Jackie. Since when can I pass that cup?”

  “You had a little bowl of stew and a big salad.”

  “Okay, so?”

  “You don’t eat salads for dinner. I’ve never seen you eat a salad in fifteen years.”

  “So I felt like a salad, Jackie. What are you getting at?”

  “You’re not drinking as much beer, either. Try to deny it.”

  I held up my hands. “Guilty. You busted me.”

  “You’re working out, too. I can tell.”

  “You’ve been bugging me for years to take better care of myself,” I said. “So now maybe I am. Is there something wrong with that?”

  “You finally decided to listen to me? That’s what you’re telling me?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “Yes, Alex. It is. You’ve never listened to me. Not once.”

  The door opened at that moment, saving me from Jackie’s third degree. It was my friend and neighbor, Vinnie LeBlanc, bringing in a blast of cold wet air.

  “Holy Christ,” Jackie said. “You can smell the snow coming. It makes my bones hurt.”

  “Who’s winning?” Vinnie said as he took off his coat. It was a denim coat with a fur collar, the only coat I’d ever seen him wear, no matter how cold it got. He was an Ojibwa Indian, a member of the Bay Mills community. He had moved off the reservation a few years ago, and had bought the land down the road from mine and had built his own cabin. We were friends for a while, and then we weren’t. Then I helped him look for his brother. What we found was a hell of a lot of trouble, but somehow we also found our friendship again. Just like that, without a word.

  “Wings,” I said. “Two to one. They just waved one off for Colorado.”

  He sat down next to me and asked Jackie for a 7Up. The man never touched alcohol, going on nine years straight.

  “Jackie’s right,” Vinnie said. “It’s gonna snow. You better not be too far away from home when it does.”

  “That’s a good one,” Jackie said. “Since when does Alex go anywhere?”

  Vinnie looked down at his glass. He rattled the ice. He had a smile on his face, a smile so subtle you wouldn’t even see it if you didn’t know the man as well as I did.

  He knew. He was the only one who knew my secret.

  I just couldn’t tell Jackie about it. Not yet. I knew he had strong opinions about some things in life, and this was one thing he’d have a lot to say about. Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear it yet. Or maybe I didn’t want to ruin it. Maybe talking about it in the light of day would make it all vanish like a fever dream.

  For whatever reason, I kept my mouth shut that night. I was happy to sit by the fire and watch the rest of the hockey game. The Wings gave up a late goal and after the five-minute overtime had to settle for a tie. Vinnie put his feet up and closed his eyes. There was still white tape on the side of his face, where the bullet had taken off part of his ear. I knew he was spending a lot more time over at the reservation now, looking after his mother. I didn’t see him nearly as much.

  We heard the wind picking up. There was a soft ticking at the windows. The snow had started. Outside this building, not a hundred yards away, lay the shoreline of Lake Superior. The ice stretched out a quarter mile, into the darkness of Whitefish Bay. Beyond that there was nothing but open water—water so cold and deep it was like a cruel joke to call it a lake at all. It was a sea, the Sea of
Superior, and tonight it would feed the snow gods.

  “You’re gonna be plowing,” Vinnie said. He kept his eyes closed.

  “I’m ready.”

  He opened one eye. He started to say something and stopped.

  “What is it?” I said.

  He smiled again. Two smiles in one night.

  “You’re not going anywhere tomorrow,” he said. “You’re gonna be stuck here.”

  “We’ll see about that,” I said. But I knew he was probably right. God damn it.

  We finally left around midnight. I said goodbye to Jackie and he dismissed me with a wave of his hand.

  “You got him a little worked up,” Vinnie said as we stepped out into the night. There were already three inches of new snow covering the parking lot. “He doesn’t like not knowing what’s going on.”

  “A little suspense is good for him,” I said. “It keeps him young.”

  “I’m going to my mother’s house,” Vinnie said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll plow your driveway. Drive carefully.”

  We brushed our windshields off and then we were on our way, Vinnie to the reservation in Brimley, and me back up to the cabins. If you ever come to Paradise, Michigan, you just go through the one blinking red light in the middle of town, then north along the shore about a mile until you get to an old logging road. Hang that left and you’ll pass Vinnie’s place first, and then you’ll find my place. My father bought the land back in the 1960s, and built six cabins. I live in the first cabin, the one I helped him build myself, back when I was an eighteen-year-old hotshot on my way to single-A ball in Sarasota. At the time, I never thought I’d be back up here for more than a visit. I certainly wouldn’t have imagined living up here. Not this place, the loneliest place I’d ever seen. But all these years later, after all that had happened, here I was.

  I put the plow down and pushed the new snow off as I went. It felt as light as talcum powder. I drove by Vinnie’s place and then mine, and kept going. The second cabin was a quarter mile down the road. There was a minivan parked in front, with a trailer carrying two snowmobiles hitched behind it. A family, a man and his wife and two sons. I’d given them the chance to cancel, but they’d said they’d come up no matter what. Even with no snow, they looked forward to thetrip every year. Now it looked like they might get some riding in after all.