A Hard Ticket Home

By: David Housewright

Narrated by: Brent Hinkle

Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.

Mac begins combing the backstreets of the Twin Cities, tracking down Jamie’s last known associates. He starts with the expected pimps and drug dealers, but the path leads surprisingly to some of the Cities’ most respected businessmen, as well as a few characters far more unsavory than the street hustlers he anticipated. As bullets fly and bodies drop, Mac persists, only to find that what he’s looking for, and why, are not exactly what he’d imagined.

David Housewright’s uncanny ability to turn the Twin Cities into an exotic, brooding backdrop for noir fiction, and his winning, witty hero Rushmore McKenzie, serve as a wicked one-two punch in A Hard Ticket Home, a series debut that reinforces Housewright’s well-earned reputation as one of crime fiction’s stars.

©2004 David Housewright (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing

My "Prayer Review" Happy to add a new guy to it.

Dear God: Please let this man write another book soon and please let me be here to listen to it. I can't say something like 'even his worst book is good' because I can't think of anything he's done that is worse than anything else.

Before I post this list I have to say that Sandford, Parker and MacDonald are EXTRA special. And Richard Ferrone as John Sandford's voice is an amazing match. Like George Guidall with Craig Johnson and pretty much anything George reads.

Robert B. Parker lived in this space for me as did John D. MacDonald, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, John Hart, Craig Johnson, John Lescroart, William Kent Krueger Ridley Pearson ,and Jonathan Kellerman. Some others are really good but these guys have something special. If you are into mystery-thrillers I just gave you a back catalog I wish I could have...but I HAVE had it and it is an incredible treasure. I stopped going to libraries and swap places just so I can encourage these guys by sending them money. Please enjoy.

First book of series has great mystery

I really like the Rushmore books, good mysteries and lots of fun local sights mentioned. The narrator, however, reads like he is angry the whole book which is not how I hear Mackenzie in my head, still I listened to the end. So good mystery, a little dated but not much and very satisfying.

Not what I expected

Arthur highly spoke of n local newspaper. Said series was fantastic. Started with 1 in the series. Story ok. Way too many old unoriginal saying and cliches. But the reader was just terrible. Could not tell which character was speaking. Will try another one but not much expected without out new reader.

Minnesota nice semi-hard boiled detective

How much if this book is just a man driving around describing the local geography - like when a rock band shouts out the name of the city they're playing in.. FALCON HEIGHTS! MINNEHAHA FALLS! It doesn't seem forced at all. Sadly, the narrator has the strangest, wooden, I'm-always-practically-shouting, delivery. That, and he doesn't know how to pronounce "Lake Minnetonka"? Unforgivable. "As I drove north on Snelling Avenue past the Minnesota State Fair I thought about eating cheese curds and listening to the Cannon Mess on WCCO AM radio, just as someone hit me on the head again and I lost consciousness". Maybe Google street view has an audio track? Now that you mention it, having Alexa read the book out loud would definitely be an improvement.

Completely Improbable Story

Other reviews refer favorably to David Housewright books in a series. Didn’t find a lot to like with this one. Maybe I better read another one in the series before I write him off. Being from the Twin Cities, I am critical of narrator mispronunciations like “Wabasha” and Interstate 35 East & 35 West. Even though the E & W mean East & West, I have never heard one Twin Cities resident say anything but 35E or 35W. The author had no hand in those but editing should have caught them. If in California, it would sound equally silly calling Interstate 10 or Interstate 405 anything different than “The 10” or “The 405”. Housewright’s layering of the danger and killing is too much for me. Sorta like what has happened to Reacher’s character. Over the top and gratuitous, as are the descriptions of fighting moves and the numerous cliches. It could be a good story but too much for me.