[.ca] The Bone Orchard (ISBN 0553584162)

The pace never lets up:
An impressive first effort by Mr. Judson. There is action right from the start, and the pace never let's up. Just when I thought that I had figured out who was behind the bizarre single-car wreck (murder) witnessed by the protagonist, Mac, the author threw me another curve and I was back to square one. It was a fun trip to the end. The other thing I enjoyed was the depth of Judson's main character, Mac. He was a three dimensional man, not just another super hero accomplishing the seemingly impossible. Such depth should lend itself well to the series which author Judson promises.

Picks up Towards the End:
Although the setting was intriguing and characters believeable, I felt the story was cumbersome and didn't really start to flow until the later chapters. Mac is a very likeable dectective and well drawn out but the story does not move forward easily and did get frustrating because it wasn't moving forward fast enougth. The author did live in the area which made me want to finish the book because the setting and economic climate was on point. I do think the second book will have a better flow, but this book is not an easy read, particularly if you like to read crime books like Patterson and Cornwall.

Impossible to put down:
"The Bone Orchard" by D. Daniel Judson is a classic hard-boiled PI novel. Declan MacManus is a sometime PI, full time boozer and guilt ridden by his past. He is on unfriendly terms with the local cops and trouble seems to gravitate toward him. Reluctantly accepting an assignment from big time PI Frank Gannon, Declan witnesses a single car accident while on stakeout. He is convinced the "accident" was staged and is murder. Was he set up as a witness to insure a speedy inquest? Declan cannot let it go and upsets powerful people as he and his partner (ex DEA) Augie investigate. When Augie gets ambushed Declan puts himself in harm's way to save his friend. While moody, boozy, reclusive and paranoid---Declan is a renegade with a powerful sense of justice, a true anti-hero. The dark and mysterious plot moves in nonstop fashion, full of vivid scenes, with sufficient murder and turmoil. Uncovering the manipulator of the conspiracy is the whodunit and the twists and turns are impossible to predict. "The Bone Orchard" is an excellent debut novel and worthy Shamus nominee. Mr. Judson gets the maximum from a minimum number of characters and spare prose. A bright star on the mystery horizon

Fine first novel:
Judson has created a strong portrait of a new, guilt-ridden hero in Declan MacManus; a young man with too many secrets, a deep well of personal pain, and unshakable loyalty to the few friends he has. It is to Judson's credit that the character never steps into stock territory but remains an interesting and driven soul to the end. The book has great narrative drive that doesn't let up for a moment, with fully conceived, viable characters and so much action that the reader (never mind Mac) scarcely has time to breathe. There is murder, threatened harm, and mayhem; and no one is entirely what she or he appears to be. My one problem with The Bone Orchard is the many references to past events for which the reader has no information; a technical mechanism to create an historical pattern of behavior for his hero. Unfortunately there are just too many of these references and they become somewhat confusing. I found myself flipping back to try to find the origins, but they weren't there. One has to fill in the blanks in some instances. This doesn't slow down the pacing of the book and given that this is the author's first published work, he'll probably be more assured in the forthcoming The Poisoned Rose (the second in the series.) I will certainly buy it. Judson is someone to watch. He's very talented and displays impressive control of his material.

A Hard-Edged Thriller:
This is an excellent first-up novel by D. Daniel Judson. It's dark, brooding and introspective, often violent with a loner protagonist who seems to be taking on the world. Essentially, it contains all the elements of noir at its best. It's important to note that although this is his first book, it's actually the sequel to THE POISONED ROSE and will probably be more fully appreciated if it's read second. At least that's the order that I read them and was thankful that I did due to the numerous references to events from THE POISONED ROSE. To quickly summarise the story, Declan (call me Mac) MacManus is just scraping by with a minimum wage job and a police chief who is out to get him. Supposedly to help Mac out, private investigator Frank Gannon offers him a surveillance job that he is to take with his long-time friend, Augie. Mac knows better than to get involved with Frank Gannon, but takes the job against his better instincts, reasoning that he is helping Augie out. While on the surveillance job they witness a car accident that looks suspiciously as though it was no accident and quickly involve themselves but cannot save the driver of the car. Augie watches the police investigate the accident but isn't convinced that they did anything more than clean up the mess, so he starts to investigate himself. It's as a direct result of this extra involvement that all hell breaks loose for Mac and Augie. They are each ambushed by unknown assailants in separate incidents; the result for Augie sees him charged with manslaughter as he was a little too proficient in defending himself. As for Mac, apart from being ambushed, he's set-up, hunted and almost killed (a number of times) while firstly trying to find out why the car accident happened and then as he tried to gather evidence to help Augie beat the manslaughter charge. There is a strong sense that Mac is simply surviving from one encounter to the next and only managing that through sheer willpower. This is a dark thriller in which you've got to grit your teeth and hope that the right people manage to survive. As a lover of noir fiction I enjoyed this story immensely.