Where I Can See You

by Larry D. Sweazy

Overview

Haunted by the disappearance of his mother when he was eight years old, detective Hud Matthews begins his own investigation to find out what really happened so many years before. When a rare murder occurs in the lakeside community, Hud's veteran skills are called upon to capture the killer. Pulled deep into the threads of the community with ties to the past, Hud quickly becomes a target, not only of the killer, but of those who wish the past to be left alone. As Hud gets closer to discovering the truth about the crimes, he has to face a choice of enforcing the law, or stepping outside of it to make sure that his version of justice is served.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633882119
Publisher:	Seventh Street Books
Publication date:	01/10/2017
Pages:	255
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Larry D. Sweazy is the author of See Also Deception, See Also Murder, A Thousand Falling Crows, Escape from Hangtown, Vengeance at Sundown, The Gila Wars, The Coyote Tracker, The Devil's Bones, The Cougar's Prey, The Badger's Revenge, The Scorpion Trail, and The Rattlesnake Season. He won the WWA Spur award for Best Short Fiction in 2005 and for Best Paperback Original in 2013, and the 2011 and 2012 Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western Fiction for the Josiah Wolfe series. He was nominated for a Derringer award in 2007, and was a finalist in the Best Books of Indiana literary competition in 2010, and won in 2011 for The Scorpion Trail. He has published over sixty nonfiction articles and short stories, which have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine; The Adventure of the Missing Detective: And 25 of the Year's Finest Crime and Mystery Stories!; Boys' Life; Hardboiled; Amazon Shorts, and several other publications and anthologies. He is member of ITW (International Thriller Writers), WWA (Western Writers of America), and WF (Western Fictioneers).

Editorial Reviews

11/07/2016
Set in what might be rural Michigan, this gripping if overwrought crime novel from Sweazy (A Thousand Falling Crows) focuses on a detective’s personal obsessions. Homicide detective Hud Matthews, having left the Detroit police under dubious circumstances, has returned to the decaying lakeside resort town where he grew up and where his mother disappeared when he was just a boy. Besides joining the overwhelmed local police to solve a baffling series of murders, Hud pokes at his mother’s cold case, to the residents’ dismay. He can’t help himself, as the action staggers relentlessly onward, revealing the little town’s secrets. What, for example, is Hud supposed to think when he discovers a photograph of his mother in the company of his best friend’s father, his best friend being the sheriff who just hired him? Set in autumn, the story is overloaded with images of death and despair, but it will intrigue readers willing to grope through the gloom. Agent: Cherry Weiner, Cherry Weiner Literary Agency. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Where I Can See You is a first-rate small-town mystery full of crackling suspense and enough surprises to make the reader’s head spin. But the book’s protagonist, Hud Matthews, is the real star here. A tough, smart, sensitive man haunted by his past and furiously compelled to keep looking for answers no matter how painful they may be. Don’t miss a single tension-filled word of this one!”
 
—David Bell, bestselling author of Since She Went Away
 
“A disgraced big-city police detective’s search for his mother and the return to the familiarity of his old hometown provide a solid framework for noir mystery. Juxtaposed against a series of seemingly senseless murders, the story unfolds with escalating tension. Readers are in the hands of a writer who knows how to tell a riveting story through the development of sympathetic characters—without the easy reliance on graphic violence.”
 
—Anne Hillerman, New York Times-bestselling author of Rock with Wings
 
“No one weaves a mystery quite like Larry D. Sweazy, and never has his one-of-a-kind knack for twists and thrills been on better display than in Where I Can See You. Hud Matthews is a hard-hewn, mold-breaking detective hell-bent on unearthing the secrets of not only his boyhood home—a small town with a skeleton in every closet, a ghost around every corner—but of his own past. And by any means necessary. Written with rich and vivid prose, Where I Can See You is a story that sinks its teeth into you and doesn’t let up until the last page is turned.”
 
—Adam James Jones, award-winning author of The Vendetta of Felipe Espinosa
 
“Sweazy is the rarest of writers. He aims for the jugular and hits it every time. Few do it as well. None do it better.”
 
—Brandt Dodson, author of The Sons of Jude

“A master of narrative description, Sweazy paints from a cold palette. Hauntingly poignant, Where I Can See You rips the scabs off old wounds and long-buried secrets, revealing a tragic hero on a quest to unearth the truth of what happened to his beloved mother. Hud Matthews is a tough-as-nails, introspective cop who can take an oar upside the head and come back swinging. Rich and compelling, Where I Can See You is a moody tale of longing and loss, a quest through the haunted past to the violent present.”
 
—James W. Ziskin, author of the Anthony, Barry, and Lefty Award-nominated Ellie Stone Mysteries

“Sweazy has skillfully woven three strands together in this taut and moody mystery: Who killed a young woman and left her body at the edge of Demmie Lake? What happened to Detective Hud Matthews in Detroit that led him to return to the Lakes and join their underfunded force? And why did his mother up and vanish when he was an eight-year-old boy? Sweazy sets this yarn in a vividly evoked lakeside town, a long-time vacation destination now crumbling into nostalgia, poverty, and drugs. I could smell the mud by the lake and the mold inside the cabins. The town is crumbling, but the old secrets, yearnings, and alliances are as strong as ever. Hud was once an insider, but years away have left him uncertain of what remains of the town he knew. He juggles old loyalties, new acquaintances, and his own agenda in this fine mystery.”
 
—Ann Littlewood, author, the Iris Oakley mystery series

From the Publisher

2016-10-05
A police detective returning to his Midwestern hometown is confronted by an unending stream of new crimes when he’d rather be investigating an old mystery close to his heart.After killing a snitch who’d shot and wounded him, Hud Matthews was politely asked to leave the Detroit PD. Now he’s back home working for police chief Paul Burke, a man he’s spent most of his life not much liking. On “the perfect kind of day for someone to find a dead body,” someone leaves the corpse of Pamela Lynn Sizemore, a jobless junkie, half in and half out of Demmie Lake. The obvious suspect would seem to be some unpaid dealer who wanted to make an example of her, unless it’s one of the dozens of lowlifes her downward path has crossed. The case gets seriously complicated by the murder of Kaye Sherman, who worked in a medical office that could have been feeding Pam’s habit, and even more baffling when Kaye’s husband, Conservation Officer Leo Sherman, who’s gone on the run, gets shot down just as Hud’s finally at the point of taking him in. As Burke aptly notes, however, Hud’s heart isn’t really in the case no matter how tangled and violent it gets. What he really wants to do is solve the mystery of his mother’s disappearance back when he was 8 years old. Certain that she wouldn’t have abandoned him, he’s convinced she was murdered. But what are the chances of bucking Burke to solve an ancient crime nobody else even believes was a crime when the townsfolk are stuck in a much more obvious nightmare? Versatile Sweazy (See Also Deception, 2016, etc.) punctuates the lawman’s quest, laid-back yet urgent, with snatches of flash-forward dialogue that warn you not to expect a series. Well, we’ll see.

Kirkus Reviews