Rating: 
Summary: Award Winning Novel is Merely Average
Review: "A Cold Day in Paradise" scored an extremely rare coup in winning bost the Edgar and Shamus Award for best first mystery novel. I am a huge fan of private detective fiction and on that basis alone I gave it a read. Maybe it was the hype, but I was somewhat disappointed. The novel starts out well, former Detroit cop Alex McKnight has retired to the bleak shores of Lake Superior after having received a bullet in the chest. The cold landscape of Northern Michigan in the late fall is a perfect backdrop for a good hard-edged story. Alas, it fails to materialize.The plot is strangely oblique and uses the old device of a killer out of the hero's past. It works well for a while, but ultimately stretches plausibility. The book also doesn't make as good a use of its setting as it could. McKnight never explains why he chose to live where he does (other than a tenuous family tie) and the events of the book have no unique local flavor to them. But the novel's biggest flaw is the presence of two characters. One is the local Chief of Police, who takes an absurd pathological dislike to McKnight for no particular reason that I could discern. The other is the character of a missing man's wife with whom McKnight had an affair. Her nastiness also seems contrived and their relationship, after taking an implausible turn, is left bizarrely unresolved at the end of the book. Overall, author Steve Hamilton has some of the moves to be a great private detective fiction writer. But he's nowhere near there yet, awards not withstanding.
Rating: 
Summary: Do Yourself a Favor
Review: A COLD DAY IN PARADISE is Steve Hamilton's first novel. In it he introduces us to Alex McKnight, ex-cop, ex-baseball player, current private investigator carrying around a bullet in his chest from a shooting 14 years previous in which his partner and friend was killed. When McKnight is taunted with information supposedly known only to he and the imprisoned killer and is later tormented with intrusive recollections from the past, it begins to appear to McKnight that the man in prison is responsible for two murders in the present. Once the groundwork for the mystery is laid, i.e. how can a man in prison commit two murders out of prison, I was hooked. My guess is you'll be hooked too. In A COLD DAY IN PARADISE, Hamilton displays his skill to write tense and absorbing scenes driven by realistic dialogue spoken by intiguing characters easily visualized. Having read two previous novels with McKnight as the main character, it was well worth the reading experience to read Hamilton's first book. It was interesting to see the basis for the behaviors and relationships described in the later books. Whether you've read Hamilton's later books and are interested in McKnight's past, or have never experienced the writing skill of Steve Hamilton, do yourself a favor and read this well-deserved Edgar and Shamus awards winner! Tim Smith
Rating:
Summary: Lincoln Log PI squares the corners
Review: A COLD DAY IN PARADISE Steve Hamilton has written a daunting, well-woven, first time out thriller that delivers. He introduces Alex McKnight - former professional base-ball player, ex-Detroit cop - who with drink, dames and drugs has managed to hold at bay the ghosts and traumas of his past. Life's follies have turned McKnight into a low calorie version of the consummate looser. Bad knees ended what might have been a marginal stay in the Big Leagues. Later came a more promising career in law enforcement and that ended abruptly by a yellow-wigged, psycho living in a tin-foil wrapped apartment . Score that round for Rose, who during a routine surveillance strokes his own demons and, without warning, brandishes an Uzzi, fires away at McKnight and makes mincemeat of Franklin, McKnight's partner. In the aftermath drink, depression, a broken marriage take their toll as McKnight lives and relives the shooting.The docs gave it their best.They removed two of the three slugs. The third, too close to McKnight's heart to risk an operation, remains untouched, embedded within him and, more than a permanent, transportable shrine to Franklin, its significance inescapably fused into McKnight's existence. After all this who could blame the guy for being morose and brooding? And who cares how he spends his time on his land in Upper Michigan Peninsula, chopping wood, renting a cabin or two during the hunting season, pocketing disability checks and hoping like hell to get through the nights when the visions of Franklin, of Rose, of all the splattered blood on the aluminum foiled walls make the pills necessary? Yet, some people are not content to let basket cases be basket cases. Not Edwin Fulton, poor faced gambler, stinkingly rich - with "friends" to help relieve just such a problem. Or Fulton's wife, Sylvia, gorgeous and bored. Or Uttley, lawyer on a mission, who recruits McKnight to be his own personal, part-time PI. And now into this sleepy, rural community comes murder, inescapably connected to McKnight's past. Hamilton takes us on a tightrope act, entertaining and daunting. He plots a good who-done-it, keeps well within the bounds of the mystery genre. No crime fantasy here, despite what seems like a killer etherizing from a cell to outwit police and PI alike. The logic of the plot is simple, but at times blurred. Often, Hamilton goes interior, churning through McKnight's fears and desperation, building suspense, juggling scorecards and bringing into doubt McKnight's own mental stability. For a good portion of COLD DAY, the tethering back and forth on the possibility that McKnight has no enemy - no stalker - tries Hamilton's handling of his material and tweaks our sense of being hoodwinked. Is he pulling the baseball cap over our eyes and keeping the reader purposely at a loss so he can find a suitable conclusion to what would seem to be an impossible situation? This is the book's curiously daunting element . As COLD DAY unfolds, the reader begins to fathom the notion that Hamilton is playing loose and fast with details we need to have - in deed, must have - allowing us to be cleverly challenged and to make a run for the solution but not haplessly deceived by an author who has exited the parkway of inspiration. To his credit, Hamilton steers a straight course and in a rather remarkable way he parlays what might otherwise be a growing sense of reader flimflammery into a structural, satisfying element that serves his purpose. At the novel's conclusion we are left with the only singular outcome possible and gives us cause to reflect upon the balancing act of crime detection's age old mighty questions: "Who did it?" and "Why?" Schalti Berlin 21.Aug. 1999
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: A gripping, straight-on detective novel that grabs you from the first few lines and never lets go. Alex McKnight is a character for the ages, one who I hope will be around for many more adventures. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: Award-winning debut of an excellent new series!
Review: Alex McKnight is a former Detroit police officer who now works as a private investigator in upstate Michigan on the frozen banks of Lake Superior. McKnight was forced to retire on disability when he was critically wounded and his partner was murdered by a psychotic killer named Maximilian Rose. That happened many years ago, though, and McKnight is trying to put it behind him. Rose is in prison serving a life sentence without parole and McKnight is getting on with his new existence in the small town of Paradise. Alex McKnight is one of the most likeable and realistic protagonists for a mystery series that I have come across in quite a while. Most authors in the genre are unwilling to allow their heroes to show fear or weakness, to have them appear to be less than superhuman. Hamilton draws McKnight as a much more humble figure, though, showing him with all of his flaws, as well as his doubts and pain. When "A Cold Day in Paradise" was published in 1998, it won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, a justly-deserved accolade. Author Steve Hamilton has done a wonderful job of crafting an intriguing, page-turning mystery that would be the envy of most more seasoned writers. This series is off to a very promising start.
Rating:
Summary: Good first novel
Review: Alex McKnight is a PI living in Paradise, Michigan. He's an ex-cop who was shot in the line of duty and almost died. The man who did the shooting, Maximillian Rose, was caught and is in prison for life. Or so McKnight thinks. However first a bookie is murdered and then another bookie. And McKnight starts getting notes from the killer and the notes sound just like Rose. They mention things that only Rose would know. But no one believes McKnight, least of all of the police, who think that McKnight himself is the killer. I liked this novel. I especially liked the plot. It's believeable and it doesn't depend on the tired serial-killer plot that everyone seems to use today. The dialog is good and the characterization isn't bad. Actually, I was a bit put off by the hero, Alex McKnight. He's angry throughout the whole book, always losing his temper with everyone. Not a very likeable guy. Anger seems to be device that many new novelists fall back on because they think it builds tension and it's an easy emotion to write about. I mean, everyone knows what anger feels like. However Mr. Hamilton overuses it and I hope he tones it down in later books. Other than that, the book is good. A good solid mystery with a very good ending. Mr. Hamilton plays fair with his readers and when the killer is unmasked you can go back and look at the clues and say, "Yep, this works." I'd recommend this book. I intend to keep an eye out for the next book from Mr. Hamilton.
Rating:
Summary: Second Outing Disappoints
Review: Although I found A Cold Day in Paradise fresh and engaging, too often the author's second effort made me feel as if I'd come upon Donald Westlake having a bad hair day. Obviously, anyone who has never read Donald Westlake wont't have this reaction and may find the goings on other than cartoonish. On the major plus side, Hamilton does have a way with cold.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant first novel....
Review: and winner of the Edgar Award, A COLD DAY N PARADISE, is truly outstanding in it's characters and story line. It was a book recommended to me by Amazon and they were right....I couldn't read it fast enough. It immediately gets into the story wih Alex McKnight as the retired cop turned private eye. The way in which the plot is developed, the introduction of the characters, the characters themselves and the insertions of McKnight remembering his past make a marvelous, intriguing package - tied together very, very expertly at the shocking and truly amazing ending. I have already puchased "WINTER OF THE WOLF MOON" , Hamilton's second novel and I will bet "dollars to donuts" that it will be just as suberbly written and even more suspenseful than the first. If you like intrigue, suspense,surprises, excellent character and plot development and an answer to the mystery that is at your fingertips but just out of your reach- read this: "A COLD DAY IN PARADISE'; and no matter how warm the summer weather is, keep a blanket handy because besides everything else this novel contains, it is chilling! Have a wonderful read!
Rating:
Summary: A really good page turner!
Review: As a resident of the area Hamilton is using in his novels, I have to say he has done his research very well. And while we may have some colorful and eccentric characters here in the Upper Peninsula, he treats those characters with dignity and affection. Alex McKnight has won my heart. He's all too human and believable. In a genre that is built on formulas and often cliches, Hamilton has managed to create works that entirely appealing. I can't wait for the newest books to come out. I hope Hamilton manages to keep cranking them out for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book
Review: Excellent read! Hard to put down. Locale descriptions along with Alex's friends were very good. Alex is not a perfect hero but his heart is in the right place.(right next to his persoanl bullet)! Some of the characters,especially Sylvia, had cloudy backgrounds but maybe Steve will see fit to share more in upcoming books. Will definitely read any of his books.
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