Death and the Language of Happiness - Softcover

Straley, John

3.62

272 ratings by Goodreads

9780553572506: Death and the Language of Happiness

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553572504 ISBN 13: 9780553572506

Publisher: Bantam, 1998

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

A private investigator working out of Sitka, in the Alaskan coastal archipelago, Cecil Younger walks a narrow line between the truth and what his clients pay him to find....

Cecil Younger is a man who takes comfort in the absurdity of the universe. And the universe is obliging him, with a joint phone call from his lawyer and his shrink, to convey a job offer from another client: all Cecil has to do is kill a man.

Though common sense tells him murder just isn't a good career move, his finances tell him it can't hurt to meet his potential client. The decision will lead Cecil from a pathetic small-time murder to a decades-old slaughter that is still reaching into the present--and its dark and chilly grasp may extend to Cecil Younger himself....

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

What makes this latest Alaskan mystery a must is--as always--the sheer beauty and energy of John Straley's writing. "His right hand engulfed mine in a leathery grip and I held onto it for longer than might have been called for," says detective Cecil Younger of a meeting with an ancient bearer of secrets about old and new murders. "It wasn't until after my grip tightened on his that I felt the quaver of his body his left hand betrayed. I saw in his blue eyes the distant haze of ice, the toehold of confusion and uncertainty. William Flynn was a very old man in a durable body. His soul was a weary traveler. Looking at him I began to feel uncomfortable, as if I were walking over a canyon on a narrow railroad bridge hearing a train whistle far down the line." Available in paperback are Straley's other wonderful books about Younger, The Curious Eat Themselves, The Music of What Happens, and The Woman Who Married a Bear.

From the Publisher:

"What makes Straley's latest Alaskan mystery a must is--as always--the sheer beauty and energy of Straley's writing."
--Chicago Tribune

"Now and then a writer dares to flout the rules and, in so doing, carves out a niche that belongs to him alone. John Straley's novels, set against the backdrop of the still-untamed Alaskan frontier, are like no others."
-- San Diego Tribune

"Straley paints a picture of his adopted Alaska that is revealing, enticing and true."
--The Denver Post

"Cecil Younger is one of the most entertaining detectives since [James Lee Burke's] Dave Robicheaux."
--The Sunday Advocate, Baton Rouge

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.