Riders on the Storm

by Ed Gorman

Overview

1967: A brutal murder in the midst of an anti-Vietnam War group sparks an investigation by Sam McCain, in Ed Gorman’s most politically charged mystery yet.

When we last saw Sam McCain he had been drafted to fight the war in Vietnam. But Sam’s military career ended in boot camp when he was accidentally shot in the head and forced to spend three months in a military hospital to recover.

Sam returns to his hometown of Black River Falls, where he works as a lawyer (and part-time investigator) for the court of the snobbish but amusing Judge Esme Ann Whitney.

Two of Sam’s oldest friends are caught up in this same battle. Veteran Steve Donovan brutally belittles and finally savagely beats his old friend veteran Will Cullen when Cullen announces he’s joined the anti-war group.

When Cullen is found murdered, the obvious suspect is Steve Donovan, but Sam has serious doubts about the man’s guilt. At least three people had reasons to murder Cullen, and Sam begins to suspect he’ll discover even more as his investigation heats up, in this dynamic new politically charged mystery novel by a veteran of the form.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781605987163
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	10/15/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	252
File size:	766 KB

About the Author

Ed Gorman has received the Shamus Award, the Spur Award, and the International Fiction Writers Award. Ed lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Editorial Reviews

08/18/2014
Gorman’s formulaic 10th Sam McCain mystery (after 2011’s Bad Moon Rising) focuses on the domestic conflict over the Vietnam War. Steve Donovan, an Iowa congressional candidate, savagely beats his fellow Vietnam veteran, Will Cullen, after Will announces he’s joined an antiwar group. When Donovan is found dead in a Black River Falls parking lot the next morning, everyone except for Sam, a lawyer cum investigator, assumes that Will took his revenge. Gorman skillfully depicts Vietnam veterans’ complex, often contradictory feelings toward the war—from rabid patriotism to rage toward the government—but is less subtle in the way he presents his female characters, who are all mysterious, arousing, and wear clothes that “love” their bodies (e.g., “A gray skirt that loved every inch of her lower body as the turquoise blouse loved the upper”). The cynical, detached, and plainspoken Sam, a detective in the classic noir tradition, redeems the paint-by-the-numbers plot. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Sam McCain has the rueful wisdom and charm of an exemplary hero who is curious not only about whodunit but also about some of the more elusive riddles of human existence.

San Francisco Chronicle

The kind of hero any small town could take to its heart.

Marilyn Stasio - The New York Times (on 'Wake Up Little Susie')

McCain—an intriguing mix of knight errant and realist—is good and thought-provoking company.

The Seattle Times

Gorman is a prolific, award-winning author, and the McCain series may be his best work. This is an extended, nuanced fictional biography with an occasional mystery thrown in. Great reading. Welcome home, Sam.

Booklist (starred review)

Ed Gorman is the poet of dark suspense.

The Bloomsbury Review

Gorman captures the time period perfectly. Gorman cleverly transplants the classic elements of noir into the quiet cornfields of Iowa.

Shelf Awareness

Gorman’s successfully-drawn literary picture of Sam McCain's coming of age comes to a close in the satisfying Riders on the Storm.”

The Cedar Rapids Gazette

Sam McCain has the rueful wisdom and charm of an exemplary hero who is curious not only about whodunit but also about some of the more elusive riddles of human existence.

San Francisco Chronicle

2014-09-09
This sequel to Sam McCain's eighth case, Ticket to Ride (2010), originally announced as his last, has got to be great news for fans of the sharpest investigator in yesteryear Iowa.An accident's sent Sam back home from Fort Hood and boot camp. Though he's spent months recovering in a hospital, he's one of the luckiest young men of 1971. He didn't make it to Vietnam; he didn't come home in a body bag or minus his legs, like Greg Egan, or minus an arm, like Ted Franks. And he didn't accidentally kill a Vietnamese girl like Will Cullen, who's retreated into a trauma zone all his own. When Will joins John Kerry in opposing the war, his position puts him squarely in the path of Steve Donovan's fists on the night Donovan's patron, hawkish Sen. Patrick O'Shay, presents him as a promising Congressional candidate. The next morning, Donovan is found beaten to death, and in the blink of an eye, deceptively friendly Police Chief Foster ("call me Paul") arrests Will for murder. Sam, who's as certain as Will's wife, Karen, that Foster's holding the wrong man, turns over other rocks in Black River Falls to see what's hiding under them. His suspicions fall on Lon Anders, Donovan's rapacious new business partner, and on Valerie Donovan, a widow who's one piece of work. As usual, there are plenty of other guilty secrets to discover. The final revelation, however, will take most readers by surprise, even if some of them are still scratching their heads after the curtain comes down. The Vietnam War era puts the damper on Gorman's usual generosity in strewing period detail but engages a deeper passion: "The war was not only destroying people overseas, it was destroying them back in my hometown."

Kirkus Reviews