Bøker av John Straley

This new standalone from the former Writer Laureate of Alaska and author of the acclaimed Cecil Younger series introduces an amateur sleuth with an ax to grind--and a child to save. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, retired marine biologist Delphine is on the brink of throwing in the towel. She has outlived her PI husband and feels like a burden to her son and his growing family. One night, while contemplating how to go on, Delphine witnesses a woman and her young child being victimized by her apparent boyfriend. When Delphine later discovers the woman has gone missing, she embarks on a quest to track her down and help her and the child. What begins as a chance encounter balloons into an at-once zany and heartfelt rescue mission across the Pacific Northwest. Along the way, Delphine encounters the dregs of humanity--grappling with schemers, kidnappers, and murderers--as well as its joys. With the help of a few friends, a retired PI, and a queer biker gang, Delphine becomes determined to stop the bad guys from getting away with it . . . knowing full well it may be her last hurrah. While Big Breath In stands alone, longtime Straley fans will recognize the characteristic wit, heart, and contemplation of life that threads through every one of his books--and discover a new heroine to fall in love with.

Alaska, 1935: Slippery Wilson is on his way out of town when he runs into a woman, her neice, and a crashed car. His life is about to get a lot more complicated. It's 1935 and jobs are scarce, but Slippery Wilson walks off his job at a logging camp after a gruesome accident kills a coworker. He's headed for Seattle with all his savings; he plans to buy a piece of farmland and be his own boss. When he stops to help a woman get her car out of a ditch, his life takes a serious detour. The woman is Ellie Hobbs, an anarchist from the docks of Seattle who watches out for her young niece and dreams of flying planes. But right now, she's got one busted nose and has just stuffed a dead man's body into the trunk of her car. So begins the action that will take Slip, Ellie, her niece, and her noisy yellow bird on a heart-stopping adventure up the Inside Passage from Puget Sound to Alaska

Shamus Awardwinner John Straley returns to his critically acclaimed Cecil Younger detective series, set in Sitka, Alaska, a land of perfect beauty and not-so-perfect locals.Criminal defense investigator Cecil Younger spends his days coaching would-be felons on how to avoid incriminating themselves. He even likes most of the rough characters who seek his services. So when Sherrie, a returning client, asks him to track down some evidence to clear her of a domestic violence charge, Cecil agrees. Maybe he'll find something that will get her abusive boyfriend locked up for good.Cecil treks out to the shady apartment complex only to discover the ';evidence' is a large pile of cashfifty thousand dollars, to be exact. That is how Cecil finds himself in violation of one of his own maxims: Nothing good comes of walking around with a lot of someone else's money.In this case, ';nothing good' turns out to be a deep freeze full of drug-stuffed fish, a murder witnessed at close range, and a kidnappinghis teenage daughter, Blossom, is snatched as collateral for his cooperation. The reluctant, deeply unlucky investigator turns to an unlikely source for help: the misfit gang of clients he's helped to defend over the years. Together, they devise a plan to free Blossom and restore order to Sitka. But when your only hope for justice lies in the hands of a group of criminals, things don't always go according to plan.

In the Alaskan town of Sitka, the living is tough and the crimes are aplenty . . . and plenty personal.When 97-year-old William Flynn is accused of killing his neighbor, Angela Ramirez, he turns to private investigator Cecil Younger with an odd—and, frankly, rather incriminating—request. He wants Cecil to track down a man he believes witnessed Ramirez’s murder: her estranged husband, Simon Delaney. The only problem? Flynn doesn’t just want Cecil to find Delaney. He wants him to kill the man. Cecil knows that kind of thing would be bad for business, but he takes the job, hoping he can both convince Flynn to call off the manhunt and discover what really happened to his neighbor. But the old man isn’t making the job easy. He keeps confusing two different crimes: Angela Ramirez’s recent murder and an 80-year-old tragedy in which four American Legionnaires were killed during an Armistice Day Parade.Cecil struggles to sort through the old man’s befuddled memories and dives into the search for Delaney, which takes him on a journey through Alaska history and all over the Pacific Northwest, from the Aleutian Islands to Centralia, Washington.