Second in the series. Well done. Good characters. Good carryover from the first book. I will keep reading this series. ( )

I was stunned to learn Sean Chercover is not native to Chicago -- in Trigger City, he captured the tempo, the rhythm, the flavor of the city, with all its grit and glory -- and wrote a damned exciting mystery/thriller novel in the process. When's the next one due, Sean? ( )

This is the second book to feature the PI Ray Dudgeon and like the first I'm still trying to figure out if its good or not. This time the story involves military contractors and selling secrets to China. There's also a fair smattering of Ray's private life involving a girlfriend who can't accept what he does for a living, a friend from childhood with personal demons whose also a merc, and Ray's recovery from injuries sustained in the last book. Its a good fast moving plot that will keep you interested until the end. The characters are engaging though some times they feel like they've been cut from the pages of the detective fiction catalogue. This is one of those books that every time you become almost completely swept up in action the author will write a couple pages that are so wooden it jars you back. So my hope is that he continues to write and those pages become less and less. ( )

Quintessentially Chicago: This is a very "noir" crime novel, as in the likes of Dashiell Hammett. Ray is a deeply flawed, very violent man, with a penchant for introspection. The character is drawn with exquisite detail. So is the city of Chicago in which it takes place. The plot hums along at a most satisfactory pace. This award-winning novel is a must for all Chicagoans, and for devotees of crime fiction everywhere. ( )

I read this on an airplane and it's a good airplane book, holds your attention for the requisite 3 hours, and then when you finish it, it's easy to forget. I liked the character of Ray Dudgeon, and this is the second in a series, and while I hadn't read the first, I pretty much followed everything that was happening (or at least I think I did). I found the denoument abit over the top, as if often the case when everything has to rush together, but I liked the writing and would read another from this author.

I realize that this review is really generic, with no particulars about the plot - Ray is recovering from the incidents of the first book. He is hired by a distraught dad to look into the case of his daughter, Joan Richmond's murder, by Steven Zhang, a person she employed. It's all murkier than it first appears. Ray stands up to the evil empire and saves a girl... but not his girl (through out the book Ray is semi stalking his ex who broke up with him because his world is too violent. She's right, his world is violent.) He does kill one man, and who that man was and where he came from was the weakest part of the book for me, but I'll spend time with Ray again. ( )