"Flat Spin" by David Freed / Tuesday, August 14, 2012 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Why Clay Stafford chose this book:

Pulitzer Prize winning author David Freed’s first book about an ex-military assassin turned flight instructor is enough to make your head buzz. “Flat Spin” is a fast moving chase-em-down thriller with plot twists galore. I love the humor in the tense moments; reminds me of some of the best in the hard-boiled world. Wonderful writing, as one would expect from a journalist who has been shortlisted for numerous journalistic awards. I love the premise: find the killer of the man who stole your wife. The only thing I didn’t like was that the book came to an end, but that’s the way of all good things. Good thing about a book, though, I can always read it again. In this case, I will. This is definitely a book to add to your shelf.

From Amazon:

“David Freed’s first mystery is a stay-up-late-to-finish thriller. It’s also got some of the funniest lines – and characters – one is likely to encounter in any mystery, along with a tense and compelling plot and a most original protagonist.

Based in sunny Rancho Bonita – “California’s Monaco” as the city’s moneyed minions like to call it – Cordell Logan is a literate, sardonic flight instructor and aspiring Buddhist with dwindling savings and a shadowy past. When his beautiful ex-wife, Savannah, shows up out of the blue to tell him that her husband has been murdered in Los Angeles, Logan is quietly pleased. Savannah’s late husband, after all, is Arlo Echevarria, the man she left Logan for.

Logan and Echevarria were once comrades-in-arms assigned to a top-secret military assassination team known as “Alpha.” The only problem is, the LAPD can find no record of Echevarrias ever having toiled for Uncle Sam. Savannah wants Logan to tell the police what he knows. At first he refuses, but then, relying on his small, aging airplane, the “Ruptured Duck,” and the skills he honed working for Alpha, Logan doggedly hunts Echevarria’s killer.

His trail takes him from the glitzy Las Vegas Strip to the most dangerous ghettos of inner-city Oakland, from darkened, Russian Mafia haunts in West Los Angeles to the deserts of Arizona. But that’s the least of his problems. It is his love-hate relationship with Savannah, a woman Logan continues to pine for in spite of himself, that threatens to consume him.”

Readers will find Cordell, intrigued by Buddhism and still emotionally vulnerable from his divorce, an engaging protagonist… Freed, who shared a Pulitzer Prize for the L.A. Times coverage of the Rodney King riots, capably balances humor and serious themes. – Publishers Weekly

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Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

– Clay Stafford, Founder of Killer Nashville