Deadman
is another virtuoso performance from a master crime novelist. This time, Mulheisen is headed out of town, hot on the trail of Helen Sedlacek, who skipped out with a truckload of stolen cash after chopping down mob boss Carmine Busoni with a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun. A man fitting the description of Joe Service -- Helen's amour and Mulheisen's nemesis -- has turned up in a Butte hospital in a coma, having been shot in the face at close range. Mario Soper, a Mafia assassin with a contract on Joe, has turned up dead in a Montana irrigation ditch. But where is Helen -- and the money? Who killed Mario -- and who shot Joe?
is a gritty, pulse-pounding wild-goose chase that confirms once again Jackson's place at the top tier of American mystery writers.