Fri 28 Sep 2018
A PI Mystery Review by Barry Gardner: DAVID DANIEL – The Heaven Stone.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[5] Comments
DAVID DANIEL – The Heaven Stone. Alex Rasmssen #1. St Martin’s, hardcover, 1994. No paperback edition.
This is Daniel’s first novel, and it won the PWA/St. Martin’s Best first PI Novel Award for 1993. It’s blurbed by Jerry Healy and Les Roberts, and Les, at least, honestly liked it.
Alex Rasmussen is a PI in Lowell, Massachusetts, an ex-cop who left the force under a cloud. He’s hired by a social worker to look into the murder of one of her clients, a Cambodian the police think was involved with the drug trade. She’s convinced he wasn’t, and wants Rasmussen to prove her right.
He doubts he can help her, but as an old friend on the force sent her to him, he agrees to see what he can find out. In the end, it’s more than he wants to know.
I can see how this won the St. Martin’s contest. It’s better than most first novels, as good as a lot of PI fiction being written these days, and better than some. Daniels writes smooth prose and has an engaging lead, a certified old-style PI — pure of heart, empty of wallet, full of wisecracks. What’s not to like?
Well, the plot wasn’t anything special, and there was some foolishness with the police that an editor should have caught, if there was any such thing as an editor any more … but I guess the main problem was that it’s the same old recipe, and the ingredients weren’t special enough to make the end product anything really out of the ordinary.
If Healy or Roberts had written it, I imagine I’d say “decent, but he can do better.” Maybe Daniel can, too.
The Alex Rasmussen series —
1. The Heaven Stone. October 1994.
2. The Skelly Man. September 1995.
3. Goofy Foot. February 2004.
4. The Marble Kite. April 2005.
September 28th, 2018 at 11:09 pm
Not a series I knew anything about, until now.
September 29th, 2018 at 5:51 am
Ditto, Steve.
September 29th, 2018 at 6:14 am
I remember reading the first book and liking it, but that is all. And didn’t read any of the others.
Interesting that there is a nine year gap between books two and three, you would think after two books you would either move on to something else or another character after all those years, not bring the character back.
September 29th, 2018 at 1:15 pm
I noticed the nine year gap too. All four books were published in hardcover by St Matrin’s Press, so that blew up my original thought that books three and four were self-published
September 29th, 2018 at 2:05 pm
While checking out who published the Alex Rasmussen books, I came across a mostly favorable review from BOOKLIST.
Quoting in part: “Daniel’s verbose writing style won’t appeal to everyone; on the other hand, the fourth Alex Rasmussen adventure offers a suspenseful plot, and Daniel’s fondness for the hard-boiled PI tradition is evident throughout. […]
“Daniel has a good story to tell–some might wish that he told it with fewer adjectives.”