Favorite Sons of 2019

I had some more time to read this year and managed to enjoy some great new PI writing. As I do every year I managed to pick my favorites again.

BEST PI NOVEL: Behind The Wall Of Sleep (Henry Malone) by James D.F. Hannah
BEST DEBUT: Cobra Clutch (Hammerhead Jed Ounstead) by A.J. Devlin
BEST NEW PI: Auggie Velez by Robert J. Randisi

Behind The Wall of Sleep (Henry Malone) by James D.F. Hannah

Ex-State Trooper Henry Malone is back again with his AA buddy Woody. A local stripclub owner wants him to run for sheriff and he's hired to track down the money that got stolen at a local country concert.
Malone encounters some lowlife characters and situations that tug at his heartstrings. Malone again shows that he can be a tough guy when he deals with evil men but is also very human. As ever the dialogue is witty, the action fast and furious and the metaphors funny.
I just love how this book is very dark but always has a little bit of fun thrown in that make you able to come up for air in a dark river of violence and depravity.
This is one of my favorite series of the last few years and this new entry in the series proves again why that is.

Friend of the Devil (Henry Malone) by James D.F. Hannah

Woody, ex-State Trooper Henry Malone's buddy asks him for help when the husband of an old flame is in trouble. They need to get him out of a biker bar. That seems to go fairly well, but when one of the bikers end up killed the husband is the main suspect. Woody and Henry set out to investigate who the killer is and encounter some nasty bikers and the Russian mob.
This series is what the Elvis Cole & Joe Pike series would have been when it was written by James Lee Burke. That is, it is a fast-paced and often funny PI series but with a hidden darkness and elegantly beautiful prose that sets it apart from the rest.
The way James  describes people is great, for instance: "The woman was somewhere in her fifties, blond via aisle 11 of CVS, and tanned to the color of cinnamon toast. I would have bet she had cancer cells rattling around inside her like coins in a piggy bank." Absolutely brilliant and a huge inspiration to my own writing.
There's a great number of underrated PI writers these days, but in my book James D.F. Hannah is the one earning way more success.

Midnight Lullaby (Henry Malone) by James D.F. Hannah

I discovered this one via Kevin Burton Smith's awesome Thrilling Detective website. Kevin of course knows his PI's so if he says this is one to watch I take not. Man, was he right!
Former State Trooper Henry Malone is kind of a mix between Spenser and C.W. Sughrue or better yet, a darker version of Rafferty. He's not an official PI but does some favors for friends, aided by his buddy and AA sponsor Woody. That's the kind of team I've loved since Spenser.
In this first novel he is asked to track down a missing young mother. He gets involved with neo-Nazis, meth labs and sleazy lawyers.
What makes this one such a winner is the way Hannah walks the line between the action-packed and witty style of Robert B. Parker with the dark style of say James Lee Burke and Andrew Vachss. He manages to tick every box I like in PI fiction, making me probably his biggest fan.