Somebody has put a contract out on Joe Kurtz and Kurtz wants to know who and why. Meanwhile, a dying concert violinist wants Kurtz to find the man who killed his daughter twenty years earlier. But the killer died in a house fire decades ago. Or did he...

Simmons' second love letter to Richard Stark's Parker and similar crime fiction characters is almost as awesome as the first. From the opening with the Attica Three Stooges trying to whack Kurtz while he gets a bite to eat to the shit storm of violence at the end, Simmons delivers the goods.

Kurtz grew as a character in Hard Freeze. He inched closer to having a relationship with his daughter Rachel, whom he's never spoke to. He took Frears' case despite not being initially interested. I just hope the missed appointment with his parole officer doesn't bite him in the ass in the next book. Millworth was a more than adequate villain. While I'm officially tired of serial killers, Millworth was well done.

The thing that sets Kurtz apart from the imitators is that Simmons doesn't waste time talking about what a hard ass Kurtz is. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Simmons writing is top notch and he doesn't try to imitate Stark's style, another thing that sets him apart from the competition.

That's about all I have to say except to watch for a Spenser reference early on. It seems Arlene doesn't like Susan Silverman either. Hard Freeze is nearly as good as Hardcase. Nab it if you get the chance.

Dan Simmons has a better flair for hard-boiled crime action stories than you would guess from his horror and Scifi books. I really enjoyed the action and twists/turns in this one. Easy read yet will keep you engaged.

Not my kind of book... too much psychopathic violence. But it was well done and made compulsive reading.

Worth reading but not as good as the predecessor Hardcase. Would recommend to anyone that likes hard-boiled detective novels. The coincidental happenings in the book start adding up to be less than believable by the end. But, who cares, this isn't based on reality. In the books favor, all the strings get tied up, if not nicely, then neatly.

awesome! Simmons can surely write in any genre he chooses... yeah, people will say this is liner for a litter box, but isn't this genre supposd to be typically stereotypical and cornball anyway??? i am off to get the next Kurtz book, kitties need a change of paper :)

This is the 2nd book in the series featuring Joe Kurtz, a fictional character who has recently been released from prison. The action takes place in my old stomping grounds, Buffalo, NY. Mafia big shots want Joe dead but this proves easier desired than accomplished. Sometimes it seems there are more bodies than pages. I loved it.

This installment is VASTLY superior to the first novel in this series.
Better story, better written. Where the first novel read like a screenplay (all dialogue and short bursts of prose), this one is more of a novel.

At the very least, there's some character development. You find out more about Kurtz's criminal history. You fill in some holes in regards to his relationship with his "daughter." Kurtz comes off this time around as more sympathetic in general. More real character than cookie-cutter action hero.

The best character development, however, is reserved for the villain. The novel centers around a search for a sadistic serial killer. Dan Simmons lets the reader in on the secret of who it is pretty early on, allowing the tension to come from waiting for the other characters to figure it out.

I've stated before that my love for the work of Dan Simmons has no boundary, and I was nothing if I wasn't disappointed in the first Joe Kurtz novel. But this installment is considerably closer to the Dan Simmons I have grown to love and admire.

Tout comme le tome 1, Dan Simmons m’a juste époustouflée !

Ce livre m’a happée de la première phrase à la dernière et Joe Kurtz m’a toujours autant surprise !

L’intrigue est bien faite, entraînante et nous tient en haleine. J’ai littéralement eu du mal à quitter le livre pour faire mes activités de la vie quotidienne… Je voulais absolument savoir la suite. Les événements se suivent et sont autant surprenants les uns autant que les autres et on ne s’y attend absolument pas.

La fin est juste exceptionnelle, tout comme la plume de ce génie littéraire.

Il est absolument à lire et j’ai hâte de commencer le dernier de cette trilogie.

A child rapist / murderer, unimaginably intelligent, who uses his intelligence, not to take down pendejo elite who make the world into a fascism, but to take on aliases, with power, to help him rape and murder even more teenage girls. That's who this story is about.
Joe Kurtz, an ex PI, ex military, is taking him on. Joe Kurtz is also extremely intelligent, and extremely dangerous. You'd never think he'd be able to get out of the straits he's in, in this story, but he does it!
I like the ending, for all the violence done to the bodies. It's not what you think.

Frears, a world famous violinist, who is dying of cancer, and whose daughter was raped and murdered by the violent criminal in this story, explains to joe Kurtz what he has learned from Lawrence kohlberg, the philosopher who had a theory that human beings passed through stages of moral development, just as they have to pass through Jean Piaget's stages of development.
" 'Level one was simple avoidance of punishment. Moral boundaries are set only to avoid pain. ...Level 2 was a crude form of moral judgment motivated by the need to satisfy one's own desires. ...Level 3 was sometimes called the good boy / good girl orientation -- a need to avoid rejection or the disapproval of others. ...Stage 4 was the law and order level. People had evolved to the moral degree that they had an absolute imperative not to be criticized by a duly recognized authority figure. Sometimes entire national populations appear to be made up of stage 4 and lower citizens.'
'Nazi germany,' said kurtz.
'Exactly. Stage 5 individuals seem motivated by an overwhelming need to respect the social order and to uphold legally determined laws. The law becomes a touchstone, a moral imperative unto itself.'
'ACLU type who allow the Nazis to march in skokie,' said kurtz. 'is stage 5 the top floor?' Asked kurtz.
Frear shook his head. 'Not according to the research that professors KohlBerg and Frederick were carrying out. A level 6 individual makes his moral decisions based on his own conscience and attempts to resonate with certain universal ethical considerations.. even when those decisions fly in the face of existing laws. Say, Henry Davidson Thoreau's opposition to the war with mexico, or the civil Rights Marchers in the south in the 1960s. Professor Frederick used to say that the United States was founded by level 6 minds,' said frears, 'protected and preserved by level fives, and populated by level fours and below. Does this make any sense, Mr kurtz?'
'Sure. But it hasn't done a damned thing towards telling me why you left juilliard and went to the Vietnam war.'
Frears smiled. 'At the time, this idea of moral development was very important to me, Mr kurtz. Lawrence Kohlberg's dream was to find a level 7 personality.
'who would that be?' said kurtz. 'Jesus christ?'
'precisely,' frears said with no hint of irony. ' or Gandhi. Or socrates. Or buddha. Someone who can only respond to universal ethical imperatives. They have no choice in the matter. Usually the rest of us respond by putting them to death.'
'hemlock,' said kurtz. Pruno had made Plato's dialogues required reading for him in attica.
'Yes.' frears set his long, elegant fingers on the metal briefcase. 'Lawrence kohlberg never found a stage 7 personality. but he did find something else, Mr kurtz. His testing showed that there were many people walking the street who can only be classified as level zeros. Their moral development has not even evolved to the point where they will avoid pain and punishment if their whim dictates otherwise. Other human beings' sufferings means absolutely nothing to them. The clinical term is "sociopath," but the real word is "monster." ' "[The premier imperialist's rulers.]

And here's the part that's violent that I liked. The level zero, Hanson, child rapist/murderer, gets his comeuppance. And it's not even Joe Kurtz who does it:
"100 yards away through blowing snow, snug in the driver's seat of the Cadillac suv, Hansen heard none of this. He turned the ignition, heard the V8 roar to life, set the heater to maximum, and flipped on the halogen headlights.
He had just raised his hand to the gear shift when there came a soft tik-tik and 32 lbs of C4 explosive rigged under the floorboards, in the engine compartment, behind the dash, and especially carefully around the 40 gallon fuel tank, exploded in tight sequence.
The first wad of explosive blew off Hansen's feet just above the ankles. The second batch of C4 blew the hood 100 ft into the air and sent the windshield flying. The main packet ignited the fuel tank and lifted the two and a half ton vehicle 5 ft into the air before the SUV dropped back onto burning tires. The interior of the Cadillac immediately filled with a fuel-air mixture of burning gasoline.
Hansen was alive. Even as he breathed flames, he thought, I'm alive!
He tried the door but it was buckled and jammed. the passenger seat was twisted forward and on fire. Hansen himself was on fire. The wood and polymer steering wheel was melting in his hands.
Not knowing yet that his feet were gone, Hansen lurched forward and clawed at the dashboard, pulling himself through the jagged hole where the windshield had been.
The hood was gone; the engine compartment was a well of flames.
Hansen did not stop. Reaching up and over with hands of molten flesh, he grabbed the optional roof rack of the Cadillac and pulled his charred and burning legs out of the wreck, twisting free of the interior, dropping himself away from the Flaming mass of metal.
His hair was on fire. His face was on fire. Hansen rolled in the deep snow, smothering the flames, screaming in agony.
He crawled on his smoking elbows farther from the wreck, rolling on his back, trying to breathe through the pain in his lungs. He could see everything clearly, not knowing that his eyelids had fused with his brow and could not be closed. Hansen held his hands in front of his face. they hurt. He saw in a surge of disbelief bordering on a weird joy that his fingers had bloated like hot dogs left too long on the charcoal grill and then burst and melted. He saw white bone against the black sky. The flames illuminated everything in a 60-yard radius.
Hansen tried to scream for help but his lungs were two sacks of carbon."

See what I mean? Now imagine that happening to the rulers of the Imperial power. Laugh out loud.

"just" another well written hard hitting PI story, but with that something extra. Will recommend and probably read again sometime down the road.

Another pulse-pounding page-turner from author Dan Simmons's 'Joe Kurtz series'. Kurtz is on the trail of a serial killer who also happens to be the chief of the Buffalo, NY detectives unit. Joe is contacted by a man whose 13 year old daughter was raped and killed over twenty years ago, and on a recent trip through Buffalo accidentally recognized chief detective Hansen as the man who murdered his daughter. And, throughout the course of the novel, Kurtz is dodging hits from various local crime families and militant groups even though he has formed an alliance with Angelina Farino, the beautiful crime boss of the Farino mob. The novel opens with an assassination attempt on Kurtz by three killers known as 'The Three Stooges' at Buffalo, New York's famous (and very real!) Ted's Hot Dogs that is so exciting that you can't put the book down after reading the first couple of pages.

Nonstop action, and the Joe Kurtz series is easily one of the best out there. I highly recommend any of these books!

Fast moving, hard boiled, and very dark. Better than the first Kurtz novel, it would have been improved if one of the opening scenes had been better edited. The protagonist, who is not a nice guy, contemplates doing something evil--using civilians as shields--if attacked in a diner by the bad guys. Quite sickening. Throughout the rest of the book the protagonist is borderline noble, which further makes his quiet contemplation of sacrificing the strangers around him feel out of place.