The Big Tilt

by Dan Flanigan

Overview

Winner of 2021 Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal in Crime Fiction.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

The war in Vietnam didn't kill Peter O'Keefe. Neither did his run-in with ruthless crime boss "Mr. Canada" in the Arizona desert. But chasing after justice in his own hometown just might.

A year after the private detective uncovered a criminal ring disguised as a mink farm in the Ozarks, O'Keefe is back home and back in trouble. A high school crush of O'Keefe's turns up dead, but the details don't add up. His pal, Mike Harrigan, has put his trust in the wrong people and now stands accused of crimes that could put him in the slammer. And O'Keefe? The mafia has put a price on his head.

In their search for the truth, O'Keefe and his team will have to venture into the criminal underworld of their city, each step forward bringing them closer to the edge. As trouble begins creeping closer to home, O'Keefe must decide if he's willing to pay the cost of justice - before someone else makes the decision for him.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781733610353
Publisher:	Arjuna Books
Publication date:	10/27/2020
Series:	Peter O'Keefe , #2
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.69(d)

Editorial Reviews

"Readers who enjoy high suspense, crime intrigue, and psychological tension will find plenty of all these elements in a vivid story that holds not a few surprises not only about Peter O'Keefe's relationships, but the police and criminal communities alike.—Midwest Book Review

"There is plenty of action and the author's legal background really shone through at times. A gripping tale, this has some great characters, believable, real people who grow throughout the story. With plenty of action, this is one story you won't want to put down.—Readers' Favorite

From the Publisher

2020-11-17
A blackmail case spirals out of control and poisons a private investigator’s friendships in this second novel in Flanigan’s Peter O’Keefe series, following Mink Eyes (2019).

This story takes place in “a spot of rough country that urban development had bypassed, the expanding city metaphorically closing its eyes and holding its nose.” Its main characters—O’Keefe, a rough-around-the-edges private investigator with a conscience; and O’Keefe’s operatives, the mysterious Sara Slade and the womanizing ex-cop George Novak—seem to have emerged straight from the pages of classic pulp novels. Unlike the straightforward pulp formula, however, Flanigan interweaves multiple plotlines, a strategy that may leave readers wondering why major characters frequently fall by the wayside. In the first chapter, Carmine Jagoda, a Mafia don on his deathbed, charges Robert Sciorra and Paul Marcone with the task of murdering O’Keefe for damaging their criminal enterprise. Instead of building on this opening premise, however, the following chapters focus on a blackmail case. Mike Harrigan, O’Keefe’s lawyer and childhood friend, hires him to help determine the legitimacy of claims made by Beverly Bronson, another troubled friend—namely, that untrustworthy entrepreneur Jerry Jensen is the father of her adult son and murdered a woman long ago. As O’Keefe works this case, the mob-related plot simply devolves into a rivalry between Sciorra and Marcone. As a result, the mobsters unexpectedly become the least dangerous people in the novel, as O’Keefe learns when Harrigan comes under federal investigation and a car bomb nearly kills him. The author’s offbeat narrative focus doesn’t doom the work, however. Indeed, Flanigan manages to conjure deft, hard-boiled, but literary prose that’s reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s best work.

A gritty and eloquent crime novel.

Kirkus Reviews