NO ESCAPE
Mick "Brew" Axbrewder was once a great P.I. That was before he accidentally shot and killed a cop--worse, a cop who happened to be his own brother. Then Mickβs partner, Ginny Fistoulari, blew off her own hand protecting him from a confrontation brought on by his alcoholism. Unsurprisingly, Mick and Ginny aren't on great terms any more.
Now it's a week after an incident in which Mick was shot and heβs barely back on his feet. Against his better judgement, Mick has agreed to join Ginny in providing security at a "murder mystery camp", where a dozen people stay in an isolated, snowbound lodge to play at being detectives. Then a real killer starts bumping people off, one by oneβ¦
From Publishers Weekly
At the start of fantasy author Donaldson's tense "and-then-there-was-none" whodunit, PI "Brew" Axbrewder is recovering from a gunshot wound when he learns that crime kingpin el SeΓ±or has put a bounty on him. At the urging of his partner and sometimes lover Ginny Fistoulari, the two blow town for a temp job at Deerskin Lodge, providing security for "Murder on Cue," a mock murder junket for armchair detectives. The foul playfulness turns deadly serious as soon as a storm leaves the lodge snowbound: someone cuts the phone lines, hobbles all transportation out and pops one of the players. Brew knows the bullet was meant for him, but as the body count escalates, he has no clear clue who of the 10 amateur sleuths is the pro assassin. Kooky and kinky, the large supporting cast offer lively counterpoint to terminally sullen Brew and Ginny, but even the complications they introduce can't dispel the period mustiness of a story whose suspense could be dissipated today with a single cell-phone call. Donaldson (The Runes of the Earth) is in the driver's seat as far as mastering the modern hard-boiled idiom, but his vehicle is a little outdated. FYI:This novel, one of four in a series, has been slightly revised since it was first published in 1990 under the pseudonym Reed Stephens.
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Review
"Well-paced and cleverly-plottedβ¦Donaldson, at his trademark best."
--Charleston Post on The Man Who Killed His Brother
βAs he's done so vividly with Thomas Covenant, Donaldson uses Axbrewder as a vehicle to demonstrate that people, even at their lowest and most wretched, can find transcendence through community, concentration, and disciplined self-cultivation."
_--Boulder Camera _(Colorado) on The Man Who Tried to Get Away
"Donaldson uses Axbrewder as a vehicle to demonstrate that people... can find transcendence through community, concentration, and disciplined self-cultivation." (Boulder Camera (Colorado))