Bøger af Joseph McConnell

In the second of the Mac MacArthur novels, the retired Ann Arbor Police detective finds himself wondering if Ann Arbor has a steam punk killer on its hands. A bizarre device left in a garage shoots a history professor, sending Mac, Jenn Langton, Andy Patel, and the German Shepherds on a strange hunt. From the Nigerian Civil War to the Ann Arbor Art Fair, they find hints and traces of harm done forty years before. In a story that brings in mechanical engineering, old sewing machines, a touch of romance, and even a brief lesson on speaking German Shepherd, Clash by Night is another journey through a Midwest that's just a bit darker than everyone expects it to be.

In two weeks in April, a warming trend between the Peninsular Republic and the United States is jeopardized by a clumsy diplomat. Eden Gorski and the Army of the Republic face a crisis along the southern border. Meanwhile, two of the characters from the earlier books find themselves drawn to each other in a coming-of-age thread. Full of the author's trademark wry humor and knife-sharp grasp of his characters' personalities, this book brings the Republic and its people to life once again.

An Internet troll, a wide-eyed technical entrepreneur, a little-known Civil War general's autobiography, theft of classified information, and a pack of gray wolves. They all have parts to play in a Mac MacArthur tale that stresses the need to keep your promises. Mac, Jenn Langton, Andy Patel, Jeri Klein, and the German Shepherds return to Ann Arbor's technical frontiers as another in Joe McConnell's trademark mysteries unwinds.

From Ann Arbor to Addis Ababa, through the housing bubble and into the illegal arms trade, retired detective Mac MacArthur struggles with a confusing murder. In the first of the MacArthur novels, Mac is recalled from his disability leave when a suspiciously professional killing leaves its victim lying on a runway at the Ann Arbor airport. In the mix are questionable realtors, street kids, drug dealers, arms dealers, the FBI, and -- of course, since it's a MacArthur story -- German Shepherds.

Running like a stream from the Ness of Brodgar to the wild shores of Georgian Bay to the swamps of shady finance, beliefs twist the lives of McConnell's characters. One Chief Financial Officer is dead, and his replacement vanishes. Drug dealers and sexual harassers are being assaulted. There's a wedding, a great lakes freighter broods on the face of the waters, and Mac MacArthur tests his own ontogeny. Even the German Shepherds have their ideas about what you know and what you think you know.

"US politics are crazy! Why doesn't somebody DO something?" What if they did? What would that be like? Twenty years from now, things are a little different. Welcome to the Peninsular Republic. Welcome to the Security Branch. And welcome to Dog Island.

The pieces here date from the 1980s through 2017, with the majority being written in the last 4 years. The short prose is intense, psychological, and often constructed from the language of dreams. The poetry relies partly on atmosphere, partly on image; McConnell uses pararhyme and internal rhythms, sometimes only acting within a single line, building to either an implication or a pattern of thought. The voices are as varied as the structure, but the work, regardless of form, either builds or invites you to build.