Highway 61: A McKenzie Novel

Rushmore McKenzie agrees to help Jason Truhler, the ex-husband of his lover, Nina Truhler, in Housewright's solid eighth novel featuring the Twin Cities ex-cop who occasionally does "favors" for friends (after 2010's The Taking of Libbie, SD). Jason appears to be the victim of a variation on the badger game when he attended the Thunder Bay Blues Festival in Ontario. He woke the next morning in a cheap hotel room, naked, with a dead girl on the floor, lots of blood, and no memory%E2%80%94now he's being blackmailed for murder. Trying to unravel the scam leads McKenzie into a morass involving an Internet sex ring, drug dealers, a pair of thugs called Big Joe and Little Joe Stippel, arsonists called Backdraft and Bug, and some of the Twin Cities' most powerful people. The tenacious McKenzie bounces between cops, bad guys, and movers and shakers with a tenuous hold on legalities but a good grasp on ethics. (June)