Death and the Language of Happiness

Name: Death and the Language of Happiness
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: John Straley
ISBN: 9781501987236

Author: John Straley

Series: Cecil Younger Investigation #4

Narrator: David Chandler

Unabridged: 7 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 10/26/2018

Categories: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Private Investigators, Humorous, Indigenous, Small Town & Rural

Synopsis

In the Alaskan town of Sitka, the living is tough and the crimes are aplenty … and plenty personal. When 97-year-old William Flynn is accused of killing his neighbor, Angela Ramirez, he turns to private investigator Cecil Younger with an odd—and, frankly, rather incriminating—request. He wants Cecil to track down a man he believes witnessed Ramirez’s murder: her estranged husband, Simon Delaney. The only problem? Flynn doesn’t just want Cecil to find Delaney. He wants him to kill the man. Cecil knows that kind of thing would be bad for business, but he takes the job, hoping he can both convince Flynn to call off the manhunt and discover what really happened to his neighbor. But the old man isn’t making the job easy. He keeps confusing two different crimes: Angela Ramirez’s recent murder and an 80-year-old tragedy in which four American Legionnaires were killed during an Armistice Day Parade. Cecil struggles to sort through the old man’s befuddled memories and dives into the search for Delaney, which takes him on a journey through Alaska history and all over the Pacific Northwest, from the Aleutian Islands to Centralia, Washington.

About John Straley

John Straley was
born in 1953, the youngest of five children. He received a BA in English and a
certificate of completion in horseshoeing. He enjoys jokes and a wide variety
of literature and music. He is the Shamus Awardâ€“winning author of The
Curious Eat Themselves and The Woman Who Married a Bear and
was appointed the Writer Laureate of Alaska in 2006. Straley lives with his
wife, Jan, a prominent whale biologist, in a bright green house on the beach in
Sitka, Alaska, where he works as a criminal defense investigator by day and
sleeps, writes, and plays with his band, the Big Fat Babies, whenever he can.

Reviews

Goodreads review by William on September 14, 2019

I enjoyed the first part in Alaska but then it skipped locals and characters gaily and without much reason. Got off on some side tracks like the main character's road trip to Centralia Washington that just were not part of the story but just filler. In fact the second half of the book was disjointed......more

Goodreads review by James on June 03, 2018

I'm glad to see Straley back on track after "Music". This may be the strongest in the series yet. Without giving up too much information - Straley keeps you in the dark as long as possible, so he certainly wouldn't be happy with egregious spoilers from a reviewer - I'll say that part of the appeal of......more

Goodreads review by Art on September 22, 2018

When a young woman is shot, the old man accused of murdering her asks Cecil Younger to help him. He wants to find the woman's husband. But he also is looking for other people and other answers, which lead to a wonderful literary road-trip for Cecil and his 42-year-old autistic roommate, Todd. This is......more

Goodreads review by Reading on April 01, 2023

Although I loath the cover art on this version of the book - my own has a view of small boats in a harbour at sunset - in this case it is absolutely true that a book should not be judged by it's cover. This is a superior murder mystery that appears at the outset to be a slam dunk, but of course is no......more

Goodreads review by Chi on August 27, 2018

Cecil Younger is a private eye in Alaska, and truth be told, a not very good private eye. He hasn’t worked in three months, and has had problems with alcohol in the past. But someone approaches Cecil with some work—all he has to do is locate and kill a man. He’s not a hit man, but could use the mone......more