Review: Maxwell Street Blues by Marc Krulewitch

Maxwell Street Blues

by Marc Krulewitch

Publisher: Alibi

Pages: 247

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:   Chicago runs in Jules Landau’s veins. So does the blood of crooks. Now Jules is going legit as a private eye, stalking bail jumpers and cheating spouses—until he gets his first big case. Unfortunately, the client is his ex-con father, and the job is finding the killer of a man whom Jules loved like family. Why did someone put two bullets in the head of gentle bookkeeper Charles Snook? Jules is determined to find out, even if the search takes him to perilous places he never wanted to go.

Snooky, as he was affectionately known, had a knack for turning dirty dollars clean, with clients ranging from humble shop owners to sharp-dressed mobsters. As Jules retraces Snooky’s last days, he crosses paths with a way-too-eager detective, a gorgeous and perplexing tattoo artist, a silver-haired university administrator with a kinky side, and a crusading journalist. Exposing one dirty secret after another, the PI is on a dangerous learning curve. And, at the top of that curve, a killer readies to strike again.

Kritters Thoughts:  A completely fantastic who dun it, set in the perfectly murderous town of Chicago and the private investigator on the job has deep connections to the victim, suspects and all of it.  Jules Landau's family has a not so fantasticly positive history in Chicago and he is not following in his family's footsteps, instead he is somewhat on the other side of the law as a private investigator until he finds out that someone very close to him has been murdered and his dad charges him to find out who did it.

I loved how the author pieced together all the crazy things that end up in the news in Chicago all in one book - crooked politicians, mafia ish families, crazy drugs and so on.  All are wrapped up in this one murder mystery and it just worked.  I was rooting for Landau from the beginning to find out who killed his friend and of course I was way off base, but was still satisfied with the outcome.  I don't know that I would have picked up all the clues even if I had been reading it with a fine tooth comb.  

A great who dun it, crammed in less than 250 pages.  With minimal gore, I would say all readers who love this genre would enjoy this one.


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Ebook 2014 Challenge: 52 out of 100

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.