Download PDF Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright
Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright How a simple suggestion by reading can enhance you to be a successful person? Reviewing Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright is an extremely simple activity. However, how can lots of people be so careless to read? They will certainly like to invest their spare time to chatting or hanging out. When in fact, reading Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright will give you much more opportunities to be effective completed with the hard works.
Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright
Download PDF Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright
Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright Exactly how a simple suggestion by reading can improve you to be a successful person? Reading Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright is a quite easy activity. However, how can many individuals be so careless to check out? They will favor to invest their downtime to chatting or hanging out. When as a matter of fact, reviewing Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright will provide you much more probabilities to be effective completed with the efforts.
Keep your way to be here as well as read this page completed. You can appreciate browsing the book Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright that you truly refer to get. Here, obtaining the soft documents of the book Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright can be done easily by downloading in the web link web page that we supply here. Obviously, the Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright will certainly be all yours earlier. It's no need to wait for the book Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright to get some days later on after buying. It's no should go outside under the heats up at mid day to go to guide store.
This is a few of the advantages to take when being the participant and get the book Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright right here. Still ask what's various of the various other site? We offer the hundreds titles that are developed by suggested authors as well as authors, all over the world. The link to get and download Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright is additionally quite easy. You may not find the complex site that order to do more. So, the method for you to get this Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright will be so simple, won't you?
Based upon the Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright specifics that we offer, you may not be so baffled to be right here as well as to be member. Get currently the soft data of this book Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright and wait to be your own. You conserving can lead you to evoke the convenience of you in reading this book Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright Also this is types of soft documents. You could really make better opportunity to obtain this Curse Of The Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), By David Housewright as the recommended book to check out.
A stolen gem with a tragic history, a curse and a million dollar ransom is Mac McKenzie's latest case, in David Housewright's Curse of the Jade Lily
Several years ago, Rushmore McKenzie became an unexpected millionaire and set about doing not much of anything. Now, showing up at his doorstep is the insurance company that paid the settlement that made him rich―and they want a favor. Someone has stolen a very expensive gem from a local art museum and is willing to ransom it back. The only condition is that McKenzie has to be the go between. And this is no ordinary gem―it is a jade with a history going back to the Qing Dynasty and a reputed curse that stories claim has ruined or killed everyone who has ever owned it. McKenzie agrees to help but what starts out as a simple ransom quickly becomes complicated.
Suddenly other parties―including the State Department and a mysterious woman named Heavenly―start showing up, wanting McKenzie to turn over the gem to them. When the murdered body of on of the thieves turns up in a snow drift, it looks like the cursed Jade Lily has claimed its latest victim. And there may well be more to follow…
- Sales Rank: #457404 in Books
- Published on: 2012-06-05
- Released on: 2012-06-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .88" w x 5.50" l, .91 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 336 pages
Review
“Excellent.” ―Publishers Weekly (Starred Review
“Subtle humor and brisk pacing.” ―RT Book Reviews
About the Author
DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT has won both the Edgar Award and the Minnesota Book Award for his crime fiction. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE
The last time I saw Vincent Donatucci, he handed me a check for $3,128,584.50. My first thought when I found him standing outside my front door—I ain’t giving it back!
“Hello, McKenzie,” he said when I opened the door.
“Mr. Donatucci,” I replied. A man makes you an instant millionaire, you call him mister. I opened the door wide enough to give him room to pass. “Come in.”
He crossed the threshold and stamped the cold from his feet. He unbuttoned his gray trench coat but did not take it off. He looked around. All he saw was a painting I had bought at the Lowertown Arts Festival hanging on the near wall and a lot of empty carpet.
“How long have you lived here?” he asked.
“I moved in not long after I collected the reward on Teachwell.”
Donatucci nodded meaningfully.
“Beer?” I asked. “Coffee?”
He glanced at his watch. It was eleven twenty in the A.M.
“Coffee,” he said.
I led him to the kitchen, deliberately taking the route through the dining room so he could see that I had a table, chairs, and matching buffet. It was a large house and expensive. I bought it for my father and me, but he died soon after we moved in, and I hadn’t done much with it since. Five of the rooms were still empty, although the master bedroom and bath were fully and, I like to think, tastefully decorated. So was what Dad called the family room, a large hall filled with a big-screen HDTV, Blu-ray DVD player, computer, CD stereo, plenty of chairs and sofas, including a two-hundred-year-old rocking chair, a large desk, floor lamps, and shelves filled with music, movies, and books. I was particularly fond of the kitchen where I stored all manner of culinary gadgets—mini-doughnut, sno-cone, and popcorn machines, iced tea maker, ice cream churn, pizza oven, pasta maker, a miniature guillotine used to halve bagels, a couple of toasters, and a $1,300 Jura-Capresso coffee and espresso maker that I snapped up for seven-fifty.
I poured Donatucci a mug of coffee, but none for myself. I watched intently while he sipped.
“Mmm, nice,” he said.
I don’t know why it was important that he be impressed. I guess I didn’t want him to think I squandered the money.
Donatucci settled at the kitchen table, grunting and sighing as if every movement were an effort for him. He was old, with a face so deeply wrinkled that I wondered how he shaved; more wrinkles than when I had first met him six years ago. He stared out the kitchen window into my backyard.
“May I take your coat?” I asked. He didn’t answer, and I wondered for a moment if he had heard me. “Mr. Donatucci?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Cookie?”
“Hmm?”
“I have a boatload of Girl Scout Cookies—Thin Mints, Samoas…”
He shook his head no.
“So tell me,” I said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Hmm?”
“What brings you here?”
“Are those pet turkeys?”
Donatucci was watching the thirteen wild turkeys that gathered around my frozen pond. They were loitering in a large space where I had packed down the snow with a shovel and my boots. In the center of the area was a wooden box. I had piled dry corn and grain on top of the box, and the turkeys were taking turns picking at it.
“No, not pets,” I said. “They showed up last year just before it started to snow. They must have liked it, because they came back again this year. I have a pal with the DNR who says they come into the city during the winter to forage for easy meals—I’m not the only one who feeds them. He says they’ll return to the wild come spring, although I don’t know what he means by the wild. The suburbs, I guess.”
Donatucci nodded, sipped his coffee, and watched the turkeys some more. He seemed to be drifting off, and I called his name.
“I’m not deaf, McKenzie,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“I’ve been keeping tabs on you.”
“Really?”
“People we make big payouts to, I like to keep an eye on them, see how the money changes them.”
“Does the money change them?”
“Always. Always it changes them. Sometimes for the better. They become philanthropists, you know? Share the wealth. Most of the others, they become prisoners to their money. Not always their fault, though. Suddenly everyone wants a piece. Friends turn on them, usually out of resentment. Most end up wishing they could go back to the way it was before they were rich. And then there’s you. You became Batman.”
“Hardly.”
Donatucci snorted. “Everything but the cape and the car,” he said. “Tearing around, working with the cops; sometimes working against the cops; doing good for goodness’ sake. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong.”
He snorted again.
“Mr. Donatucci, exactly what is it that you want?”
“I need a favor,” he said. “That’s what you do, isn’t it, now that you’re not with the police anymore? Favors for friends.”
“You’re not my friend.”
Donatucci smiled slightly. “You owe us,” he said.
“Us?”
“Midwest Farmers Insurance Group.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Three million one hundred and twenty-eight thousand—”
“That was a business deal, pure and simple,” I said.
“—five hundred and eighty-four dollars and fifty cents.”
“And if you could have avoided paying it, you would have.”
Donatucci groaned slightly as he adjusted his position in the chair. He was a big man, someone you would have stepped aside from when he was young and limber. Not so much now.
“No insurance company pays off on a claim if it doesn’t have to,” he said.
“Then let’s not talk about owing favors, all right?”
Donatucci took a long swallow of his coffee and then fixed his eyes on me. “Have you ever heard of the Jade Lily?” he asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure? It’s been advertised pretty heavily.”
“Wait,” I said. “Wait, wait, wait. Okay. There’s a museum in Minneapolis that’s been sending flyers. It even called a couple of times looking for donations. It has an art exhibit—the Jade Lily. Apparently there’s a curse attached to it like King Tut’s tomb. Something terrible is supposed to happen to whoever possesses it.”
“Exactly right.”
“What about it?”
Donatucci handed his empty mug to me. I asked if he would like a refill and he said yes. While I was pouring the coffee he answered my question. He spoke abruptly as if he wanted to see if my hand shook.
“It was stolen last night,” Donatucci said.
I finished filling the mug and gave it to him. “So?”
“We want it back.”
“We?”
“Midwest Farmers insured it for three-point-eight million.”
“Why come to me? Call the cops. Call the FBI.” I gestured toward Donatucci like a host welcoming a contestant to a game show. “I remember you were a fair investigator once.”
“Still am.”
“Well, then?”
“Where were you last night, McKenzie?”
“Are you asking if I have an alibi, Mr. Donatucci? Why would you ask?”
I had one. I was at the Minnesota Wild hockey game with Bobby Dunston, who coincidentally held the rank of commander in the Major Crimes and Investigations Division of the St. Paul Police Department. Yet I had no intention of telling Donatucci that. Come into my house and demand an alibi—screw that. I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against my kitchen counter.
“Any other favors you want?” I asked.
Donatucci waved his mug at me. “This is good coffee,” he said.
“Yes, it is.”
“You’re upset.”
“Not particularly. Just impatient.”
“I didn’t want to come here, McKenzie. I think it’s unethical.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I need a favor.”
“We’re back to that, are we?”
“The Jade Lily was stolen from the City of Lakes Art Museum last night. At eight o’clock this morning, the artnappers placed a call to the museum’s executive director, a woman named Perrin Stewart.”
“Artnappers?” I said.
“What else would you call them?”
“You tell me.”
“The artnappers told Ms. Stewart that they were willing to sell the Lily back to the museum for a third of its insured value. It goes against my better judgment, but we agreed—my company and the museum agreed. We have a couple of days to get the cash together, and then the artnappers will contact us with instructions.”
“I can appreciate why it pisses you off, Mr. Donatucci. Yet this sort of thing happens all the time, am I right?”
“Not all the time, but yeah, it happens. That’s pretty much how you got your money, if memory serves.”
“So why are you here against your better judgment?”
“We want to hire you to act as go-between—deliver the money, retrieve the Lily. We’ll pay you ten percent of the ransom.”
“You must be kidding.”
“No, I’m not.”
I started laughing just the same. “No, no, no,” I said.
“McKenzie…”
“Not a chance.”
“One hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“I don’t care if it’s a million. A guy could get killed doing that sort of thing, and luckily for me—thanks to the Midwest Farmers ...
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By Susan Lau
Great book as usual.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
A Delightful Read!
By carreng
This is the first David Housewright novel I've read. I loved the characters and the story line so much I'll be ordering more of his books. I found his writing style and his character McKensie's sarcastic wit very entertaining. I couldn't put this book down. I haven't been this enthusiastic about a book in a long time. I'm surprised that I am just now discovering this writer. He's great!
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
McKenzie Tackles A Deadly Curse
By TMStyles
I discovered David Housewright and his wonderfully resourceful signature character, Rush McKenzie, several years ago and his books are now among my top ten most desired. I have been surprised by the lack of national recognition and attention for a great character and author. Rush is a complicated character who gave up a career in law enforcement to accept an insurance settlement that made him an instant multi-millionaire. Now he lives a life doing what he chooses especially doing "favors" for those in need--favors that necessitate his police experience and his superb intuitive reasoning skills.
Rush is asked by the firm who paid him his settlement to act as a go-between between a museum (and its insurance company) and thieves who have stolen a priceless artifact called the Jade Lily and now want to ransom it back for insurance money. Rush reluctantly jumps into the fray and soon finds the price ratcheted up when one of the thieves is found murdered. Rush deals with a museum board hiding as many secrets and skeletons as one could ask for and soon discovers others willing to obtain the Jade Lily by any means including bribery, theft, and more violence such as an old adversary, Heavenly Petryk, a state department official, a crooked cop, and a foreign national. McKenzie follows his instincts and the trail of the thieves and killers that leads to a somewhat contrived conclusion where all the baddies are gathered as he succinctly indicts each one for some responsibilty--not your typical McKenzie wrapup but one that satisfies, nonetheless.
As in all Housewrights works, the writing is tight, suspenseful, and most importantly, believable. The plot is a little convoluted with twists, turns, and double crosses but through it all, McKenzie stays focused--even after being nearly killed in a bomb explosion. Another touch of humor is provided by an unlikely ally that accompanies Rush in his pursuit after being wounded. McKenzie is fun to follow as his mind works to out-think his opponents without the restraints of police regulations and as he listens to his "inner voice" which unerringly leads him to make good decisions. His relationships with the love of his life, Nina, and his best friend, police commander Bobby Dunston, seem to anchor each of his adventures as their characters and interactions grow more comfortable in each subsequent novel. I unequivocally recommend David Housewright and his McKenzie novels to fans of the mystery/thriller genre.
Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright PDF
Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright EPub
Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright Doc
Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright iBooks
Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright rtf
Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright Mobipocket
Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels), by David Housewright Kindle
No comments:
Post a Comment