Very Bad Men (David Loogan Series #2)

by Harry Dolan

Overview

From the national bestselling author of Bad Things Happen—the debut that Stephen King called a “great f***ing book”—comes a new crime novel that will blow readers away… 

 

ANTHONY LARK has a list of names—Terry Dawtrey, Sutton Bell, Henry Kormoran. To his eyes, the names glow red on the page. They move. They breathe. The men on the list were once involved in a notorious robbery. And now Lark is hunting them, and he won’t stop until every one of them is dead.

DAVID LOOGAN—editor of the mystery magazine Gray Streets—is living a quiet life in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with Detective ELIZABETH WAISHKEY and her daughter. But soon David and Elizabeth are drawn into Lark’s violent world. As Elizabeth works to track Lark down, David befriends Lucy Navarro, a reporter with a crazy theory about the case that threatens to implicate some very powerful people. And when Lucy disappears, David decides her theory may not be so crazy after all

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101517000
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/07/2011
Series:	David Loogan Series , #2
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	368,178
File size:	462 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Harry Dolan graduated from Colgate University, where he majored in philosophy and studied fiction-writing with the novelist Frederick Busch. He earned a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and currently works as a freelance editor. He grew up in Rome, New York, and now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his partner Linda Randolph.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The rare crime novel with something for everyone who reads crime fiction.”

Editorial Reviews

Dolan follows Bad Things Happen, his acclaimed debut, with a riveting crime novel also featuring Ann Arbor, Mich., amateur sleuth David Loogan, editor of the mystery magazine Gray Streets. When Loogan finds a manuscript outside his office door—a story about three murders, two already committed and one still being planned—he instantly realizes it's not a work of fiction but a declaration from the murderer of two local men. With the help of his police detective girlfriend, Elizabeth Waishkey, Loogan uncovers an elaborate, at times convoluted conspiracy including criminals involved in a 17-year-old bank robbery gone wrong, an adulterous statesman, a paranormal fantasy novelist turned tabloid journalist, and a charismatic politician running for the Senate. As the body count rises, the intrepid Loogan gets closer to the truth—and closer to becoming the killer's next victim. Relentless pacing, a wry sense of humor, and an engaging protagonist add up to another winner for Dolan. Author tour. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"A twist-filled adventure…The characters in this engaging work are full of surprises."

“Very Bad Men is the mystery of the summer—totally top-shelf…Simply great storytelling."

“Like Dolan’s notable debut, Bad Things Happen, this [is a] cleverly plotted, hard-boiled tale."

“The rare crime novel with something for everyone who reads crime fiction.

From the Publisher

David Loogan is back, still working as editor of the mystery magazine Gray Streets. All's well until he trips over a manuscript outside his door that opens with the sentence "I killed Henry Kormoran." And it's not fiction. Dolan's 2009 debut, Bad Things Happen, met with success, so many thriller fans will be looking for this one.

Library Journal

David Loogan, editor of a mystery magazine, returns in Harry Dolan’s VERY BAD MEN, which follows his first book, BAD THINGS HAPPEN. Erik Davies is back as well, providing the perfect voice for Loogan—gruff yet empathetic—as he struggles to solve a mystery after a manuscript is delivered to his office that provides an account of two murders and the promise of another. What follows is thrilling and suspenseful, and will have listeners’ brains going a mile a minute to unravel the conspiracy. Davies’s narration supports Dolan’s story, lending it an edge of grit. Where he falls down is in his narration of women, who never sound quite natural. Luckily, the majority of Dolan’s characters are men, so one’s enjoyment is not diminished. J.L.K. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2011 - AudioFile

A second mind-bending case for Ann Arbor editor David Loogan that begins just as simply and ominously and takes the reader on just as wild a journey.

Anthony Lark's mission is simple: to kill three of the men involved in a fatally botched bank robbery 17 years ago. He's already dispatched two of his targets—an impressive feat, considering that one of them, Terry Dawtrey, is serving 30 years in Kinross Prison—when he identifies them both and announces his third, nurse practitioner Sutton Bell, in an anonymous letter to Loogan (Bad Things Happen,2009), who promptly shares it with his ladylove, police detective Elizabeth Waishkey. The timely intervention of aspiring tabloid reporter Lucy Navarro saves Bell from Lark's initial attempt and gives Dolan a chance to fill in some back story. Lark's motives are obscure, but they have something to do with U.S. Senate candidate Callie Spencer, whose father Harlan was the Chippewa County Sheriff shot and paralyzed in the bank robbery and whose father-in-law, John Casterbridge, is the senator she hopes to succeed. Lark keeps coming nerve-wrackingly close to killing Bell; Loogan and Elizabeth keep coming heartbreakingly close to catching Lark; and yet the tale still goes on. To divulge any more about the plot would spoil some of the dozens of surprises Dolan springs. But it's not too much to say that nearly every cast member, however minor, is complicit in some crime; that nearly every one, even though they're all rooted in excruciatingly familiar generic types, gets a chance to reveal unexpected depths; and that Dolan mixes his pitches with an ace's judgment, steadily complicating Lark's quest while keeping the psychology of his characters considerably more plausible than in Loogan's equally baroque debut.

The rare crime novel with something for everyone who reads crime fiction.

Kirkus Reviews