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Cold Storage Novels #4
by John Straley
Mysterious dreams of grizzly bears, a bumbling FBI agent, and a tense hostage negotiation have the town of Cold Storage, Alaska, turned upside down.
Things in the sleepy fishing town of Cold Storage, Alaska, are changing. It's the summer of 1968; the men are wearing their hair long, the Vietnam War is at its height, and multiple assassinations have gripped the country. But some things remain the same. Ellie's bar is still the place to catch up on the town gossip, and there's a lot to talk about, from the boys who have returned from the war (and the ones who haven't), to the robberies that are plaguing the locals, to the new guy in town: a famous monk from Kentucky.
Ellie, herself a fugitive of sorts, is curious about this "Brother Louis," and worries about his motives, but he seems harmless enough. However, when a handful of other outsiders arrive to town and start poking around the bar and asking questions, Ellie begins to have reservations. Have they followed this mysterious monk, rumored to be the famous author Thomas Merton, to Cold Storage? And what is it that they want, particularly the inept FBI agent with the strange name: Boston Corbett?
Inspired by assassination conspiracy theories, the life of Thomas Merton, and the changing tide of the '60s, Blown by the Same Wind is a coming-of-age story for the town of Cold Storage itself.
"[E]xcellent...Readers looking for action will be amply rewarded, but the book's main appeal lies in the vividly drawn characters and the author's enchanting descriptions of the Alaskan outdoors. This thoughtful look at the politics and culture of a bygone era should win Straley new fans." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Terrific ... Like the earlier novels in the series, this one is funny and quirky, a lighter change of pace from the Younger books and a delight for fans of small-town comic mysteries with a bit of bite." - Booklist (starred review)
"Fans of this loopy series, licking their lips in anticipation of the ensuing complications, won't expect everything to be tied up in a neat bundle, and it isn't. Resonant 1968 memories, racist conspiracies, Zen-like mysticism, and the reliably off-kilter takes of the regulars. Perfect." - Kirkus Reviews
This information about Blown by the Same Wind was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
John Straley, a criminal investigator for the state of Alaska, lives in Sitka, where he and his wife, a marine biologist, raised their only son. He is the Shamus Award–winning author of The Curious Eat Themselves, The Woman Who Married a Bear, and The Big Both Ways, and was appointed the Writer Laureate of Alaska in 2006.
My Darling Boy by John Dufresne
The story of of a man whose son collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida.
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