Entertaining, easy read. Joe Kurtz is a great character. Story is set in Buffalo, NY.

I feel almost like I'm detecting a formula here - Put Joe Kurtz up against at least two or three people or groups of people who want to kill him, and revel in the ensuing chaos. Things haven't settled down all that much since we last saw Joe, but he and his secretary, Arlene, are running a very successful internet business that finds high school sweethearts, and Arlene would like to expand into online wedding planning. Since their office building is being torn down by the city, she wants Joe to take some time to hunt up a new space for their business, and for him to find $35K to get things up and running.

In the meantime, Little Skag has decided to have Joe killed, and set some stupid and predictable killers on his trail, a trio known in Attica as The Three Stooges. Joe's number one informant, the homeless professor known as Pruno, sets Joe up to meet with John Frears, a man who is trying to find the former colleague of his, presumed dead, who tortured, raped and killed his teenaged daughter, and whom he recently saw alive and well in a nearby airport. The deceased Don Farino's daughter, Angelina, recently returned from Italy, wants to use Kurtz to help her eliminate a rival crime family from the picture. Kurtz also has some issues with Donnie, the man who got custody of his daughter, Rachel, after her mother was murdered and he went to prison for twelve years for the revenge killings of the perpetrators. Not to be forgotten, a corrupt cop named Brubaker has decided that Kurtz was responsible for the death of his former partner, also a corrupt cop, and is out for his own pound of flesh.

So, things get very complicated, very quickly, and it takes a lot of violence on Joe's part before he can keep his appointment with Arlene to go office hunting. Kurtz' unique combination of the direct approach and the subtle scheme make this an interesting and worthy sequel to Hard Case.

It is hard to tell the good guys from the bad ones.

Joe Kurtz es sin duda la personificación de la irreverencia. En esta segunda parte de la serie protagonizada por Kurtz, la acción no se detiene en ningún momento. Dan Simmons se ha convertido en un excelente escritor de novelas negras americanas y lo deja claro en esta muy buena continuación de la saga.

You know, I was curious as to where Simmons was gonna go with this series after the ending of Hardcase in which literally everyone gets shot in the head like it was the fucking Departed. The first novel was just so cover-to-cover entertaining and well written that I was kind of worried that the author might have second-book issues with this one. Mr. Simmons, I'm sorry I doubted you. Hard Freeze is every bit at the same level as the first book, occasionally providing even more grim thrills and badassery. People who have liked Simmons' other stuff but are skeptical/unsure about the crime genre should really give this series a shot. One more good book and Simmons will have written what will surely be one of my favorite crime series (even if its relative brevity makes me kinda sad.)

Without presenting any overt spoilers I can say that this book makes clear the format of the Kurtz books; the ongoing saga of the mob power struggle for control of Buffalo continues while Kurtz grapples with what I like to think of as this series' kind of Monster of the Week plot (there was one in Hardcase and as I'm almost halfway through it I can testify to one being in Hard as Nails too). Both stories are thoroughly entertaining, but I really get my kicks watching Kurtz play cat-and-mouse with these fuckin' weirdos that Simmons is so good at coming up with. The villain in this book really takes the cake, though; he's an identity-less chameleon of a gleefully sociopathic rapist/murderer. Seriously! If I can borrow some slang from my British Isles brothers and sisters a true hardman like Joe Kurtz deserves to have the creepiest, grossest, most competent killers to grapple with and Simmons gives him this in buckets.

One skill of Simmons' that shines clearly in all of his books be they horror, sci-fi, historical, whatever is his gift for setting. Dude kicks ass at this shit as readers of his Hyperion books will know, and even if Buffalo isn't as immediately compelling as the Valley of the Time Tombs, Yggdrasil or God's Grove it's still thoroughly-detailed and alive feeling, inhabited by all the greasy and sketchy people and places that a good crime tale needs. I probably mentioned this in my Hardcase review, but I always appreciate Simmons taking the time to find an original setting for his stories as literally fucking ALL of the crime books I've read are set in L.A. or New York. Listen, there's a reason that most of these stories are set in those cities and I just read and thoroughly enjoyed Andrew Vachss' New York via Blue Belle, but it was clever and ballsy to do something different and Simmons obviously pulled it off.

These books were obviously intended as pure fun for both the reader and author, and they surely are this. There's a wry, often very gallowsy sense of humor running through the entire series even though it deals with some pretty dark, violent shit. I love reading books where the author's sense of fun writing them is palpable and these books are some of the most intense fun-vibe-giving ones I've ever read. That said, they're not a goofy pastiche, send-up, parody or tongue-in-cheek homage. They almost certainly are a homage, but they're one taken seriously by the author and written with all of his very considerable skill and power as a writer. I know that probably sounds a bit contradictory, but Simmons is just that good of a writer; he just pushes all the levels to max and just lets the reader deal with it as they will. As I mentioned before, these books seem to be a bit under-read both by Simmons fans and in general so I encourage even the mildly curious to try them.

Solid second book in the noir trilogy from Simmons serves as a homage to the gritty detective fiction form the middle of last century. A super tough but intelligent hero, a femme fatale, a serial killer and a mafia don surrounded by goons, what not to like!

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Джо Курц е бивш затворник, който е участвал в твърде много мръсни неща навремето. Сега се опитва да се прави на частен детектив на дребно с разни безобидни поръчки, но не може да вложи душата си в това начинание – нито има дом като дом, нито офис като офис, и не държи особено това да се променя. Но спокойствието му е нарушено, когато някой възлага на познати нему убийци да му светят маслото – и тяхната некомпетентност дори го обижда. Тръгвайки по дирите на поръчителите, той се свързва в крайно нестабилен съюз с наследничка на загубила сили и влияние мафиотска фамилия, с която е имал вземане-даване навремето. Тя мечтае да пречука този, който е поел бизнеса на семейството ѝ, но има много спънки по пътя си.

Издателство "Изток-Запад"
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This is a new series to me, recommended by my brother. Former PI and ex con Joe Kurtz struggles to make a living and keep on living in a Buffalo NY populated by mobsters who want him dead. Once the book settles down, it's a fast paced and exciting read. By the time the book really takes off, you'll find yourself rooting for Kurtz, those who help him and those he tries to help. Worth checking out, and I'll read another soon.

This is the second novel in the Joe Kurtz series of novels and I'll admit I read them out of order (1,3,2) but I'm glad I decided to read this one after the horrible mess of novel number 3. This one is much more on line with number 1 in terms of fast moving and a more engaging plot. The basic plot is...not so basic. And one of the weaknesses of this novel which became a full blown problem by #3 is the author can't write a streamlines plot like the Parker novels he is trying to imitate. To make the story last a full novel he has to add too many layers and coincidences which takes the reader out of the story. The good news is, even with these layers, this was a fast moving plot and came to a satisfying conclusion.

So the plot, well you start off with Kurtz having to take care of hitmen that were sent to kill him by the Farino , Little Skag. This plot line...fizzles out (and why Skag wants to kill him NOW is not clear since he could have done it easily in book one). So enter the person who wants him to track down his daughter's killer who was supposed to be dead but appeared in the airport (how this old man recognizes him when the villain himself says he has had many plastic surgeries is better left unpondered). From there the plot gets more twisty and turny...with Kurtz looking out for his biological daughter who is in the care of an alcoholic, abusive man...with Kurtz trying to get revenge on the man who ordered the death of the woman he loved...with Kurtz uncovering a serial killer. You know when I lay it out like that - gosh the plot is ridiculous. And even more ridiculous in how the main villain figures out Kurtz is a threat and the job the serial killer holds. He boasts he can reinvent himself time and time again but come on. He was a neurosurgeon? He gets to be a police Captain? Um...usually there are background checks on those things and years of working in a department before being promoted.

So why did I like the book? Well I am not claiming it is great literature but it was a fun read. Okay I am moving from four to three stars because I feel silly giving such a convoluted story 4 stars :).

Buffalo ex-con PI Joe Kurtz is on the trail of a serial killer, crooked cops and the mafia don who put a contract out on his partner. What's entertaining to me about Joe's character are the Machiavellian plans he devises and executes to deal his unique brand of justice to assorted bad guys. This is a great series!

Read in 2003. Simmons is without peer as an American writer.

The second Kurtz book introduces some new secondary characters and a lot of bad guys. It was fun, much like the first.