Bad Optics [Hardcover]

Heywood has crafted an entertaining bunch of characters. An absorbing narrative twists and turns in a setting ripe for corruption.Crisp writing, great scenery, quirky characters and an absorbing plot add to the appeal&.Heywood is a master of his form.Top-notch action scenes, engaging characters both major and minor, masterful dialogue, and a passionate sense of place make this a fine series.Joseph Heywood writes with a voice as unique and rugged as Michigans Upper Peninsula itself.Well written, suspenseful, and bleakly humorous while moving as quickly as a wolf cutting through the winter woods. In addition to strong characters and . . . compelling romance, Heywood provides vivid, detailed descriptions of the wilderness and the various procedures and techniques of conservation officers and poachers&. Highly recommended.Taut and assured writing that hooked me from the start. Every word builds toward the ending, and along the way some of the writing took my breath away.[A] tightly written mystery/crime novel . . . that offers a nice balance between belly laughs, head-scratching plot lines, and the real grit of modern police work.In 1913, Theodore Roosevelt recruits former Rough Rider Lute Bapcat to become a game warden on Michigans Upper Peninsula in Heywoods absorbing first in a new series. Outsized characters, both real (athlete George Gipp before his Notre Dame fame, union organizer Mother Jones) and fictional (randy businesswoman Jaquelle Frei; Lutes Russian companion, Pinkhus Sergeyevich Zakov), pepper the narrative.Joseph Heywood has long been a red-blooded American original and an author worth reading. With Red Jacketa colorful and sprawling new novel with a terrific new protagonist named Lute Bapcathe raises the bar to soaring new heights.Heywood mixes historythe [miners] strike and the violence it engenders, culminating with the Christmas Eve Italian Hall Disaster in Calumet, Michigan, in which 73 diedwith vivid characterizations in a . . . promising ló(