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Mike Angel Mystery #1
Dark Quarry
This is the first in the “Dark” series of Mike Angel, Private Investigator mysteries, and is set in the New York/New Jersey and Chicago areas in 1960. It is historical fiction and involves names and places connected with the infamous Purple Gang of the 1930s. Supernatural elements are also involved.
Burdened by the unsolved murder of his father, a career NYPD lieutenant whose “voice” warns whenever danger is near, 30-year-old Mike Angel is a Korean vet and bored private investigator of insurance fraud. When a wealthy ex-college buddy hires him to tail Joe Ambler, a petty blackmailer, Mike fixates on Kimbra, a stunning beauty who kills the blackmailer. Mike impulsively helps her dispose of the body and finds himself on the wrong side of the law.
Mike discovers the dead man was the grandson of a feared and legendary mob leader, founder of Detroit’s Purple Gang of the 1920s and 30s. The same week, a well-dressed thug comes looking for Ambler, and the wealthy buddy who hired Mike runs off with Kimbra and is murdered in the Bahamas.
Kimbra disappears. While searching for her Mike stumbles across connections to the Russian-Cuban branch of the ring responsible for a string of unsolved murders in three states. The discovery leads to a chain of events and a frame up. Mike is convicted of murder, and is sent to the federal prison at Trenton, where the warden enlists him in a jailbreak with a hardened criminal with ties to the Purple gang. After Mike escapes, he is helped by an attractive but single-minded newspaper woman, Heddy McBright.
Mike locates the witness and evidence that will clear him, and discovers the frame and the escape were both setups. After a shootout, a crooked judge yanks Mike’s investigator’s license so he moves to Chicago to follow leads to more remnants of the Purple gang. He sets up an office and is helped by Molly Bennett who becomes his main love interest and a major character in the series, along with Rick Anthony, Mike’s late father’s partner on the NYPD, who becomes Mike’s partner. Mikes struggles with alcohol and commitment to Molly, and is sidetracked his efforts to nail the kingpins of the gang.
Sex, deception, murders, shootouts, more sex, and crooked officials, take Mike on a dangerous mission to the final showdown at mob headquarters outside the small town of Mattoon, Illinois, where he hopes to discover who killed his father and save the life of Nika, a woman he has fallen for.
Burdened by the unsolved murder of his father, a career NYPD lieutenant whose “voice” warns whenever danger is near, 30-year-old Mike Angel is a Korean vet and bored private investigator of insurance fraud. When a wealthy ex-college buddy hires him to tail Joe Ambler, a petty blackmailer, Mike fixates on Kimbra, a stunning beauty who kills the blackmailer. Mike impulsively helps her dispose of the body and finds himself on the wrong side of the law.
Mike discovers the dead man was the grandson of a feared and legendary mob leader, founder of Detroit’s Purple Gang of the 1920s and 30s. The same week, a well-dressed thug comes looking for Ambler, and the wealthy buddy who hired Mike runs off with Kimbra and is murdered in the Bahamas.
Kimbra disappears. While searching for her Mike stumbles across connections to the Russian-Cuban branch of the ring responsible for a string of unsolved murders in three states. The discovery leads to a chain of events and a frame up. Mike is convicted of murder, and is sent to the federal prison at Trenton, where the warden enlists him in a jailbreak with a hardened criminal with ties to the Purple gang. After Mike escapes, he is helped by an attractive but single-minded newspaper woman, Heddy McBright.
Mike locates the witness and evidence that will clear him, and discovers the frame and the escape were both setups. After a shootout, a crooked judge yanks Mike’s investigator’s license so he moves to Chicago to follow leads to more remnants of the Purple gang. He sets up an office and is helped by Molly Bennett who becomes his main love interest and a major character in the series, along with Rick Anthony, Mike’s late father’s partner on the NYPD, who becomes Mike’s partner. Mikes struggles with alcohol and commitment to Molly, and is sidetracked his efforts to nail the kingpins of the gang.
Sex, deception, murders, shootouts, more sex, and crooked officials, take Mike on a dangerous mission to the final showdown at mob headquarters outside the small town of Mattoon, Illinois, where he hopes to discover who killed his father and save the life of Nika, a woman he has fallen for.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 20, 2010
108 people are currently reading
435 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
February 27, 2015
Wow, this is really bad, like written-in-junior-high-school-English-class-bad. Cliché after cliché, nothing original and it doesn't look like it will change, either. DNF after 16 pages/7%.
October 9, 2014
Don't like to give up, so I finished reading it, but I won't look for any more of this series. Angel would be a better detective if he'd think with the right head!
April 29, 2011
Dark Quarry is the first of a series of hard-boiled mysteries featuring investigator Mike Angel by author David H. Fears. I happen to like the hard-boiled genre, so I was happy to take a look at this novel.
I must admit that I found it a bit hard to get into. The author was trying to tell too much, too soon, and he was doing a bit too much telling without letting me get into the story.
As is so often the case, the story was about a murderous woman and Mike Angel falling for her. I thought it was a bit of a problem that Angel had already started the investigation and fallen for her when the novel started. Without having gotten to know the characters at all, the reader has to believe that he would cover up her murder of her husband quite so readily. This involves piling quite a lot of backstory in the first chapter.
As I said, this makes the mystery a bit hard to get into, and while metphors and similes are traditional to the hard-boiled genre, the author also piles those on a little heavily in the first chapter. Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of readers may not get past those initial problems, because Dark Quarry is a good mystery and very well written.
Once the author slows down and relaxes into his writing, in chapter two the story starts getting interested as the author gets away from backstory and starts showing the character of Mike Angel in action. The plot took some twists that surprised me, a good thing in a mystery. The writing is solid and the pacing, after that first chapter, nice and brisk.
The dead body in Chapter one might be a little too soon, and I questioned whether Mike Angel really would have covered up for Kimbra. But in the next chapter as the author brings in more characters and you start to understand Mike more, it starts to make sense and, of course, as expected, Kimbra isn't someone he necessarily should have helped. Soon she has taken off, and so has a lot of money.
The plot, which then brings in a mobster gang known as the Purple gang, gets a lot more complicated than you would first expect with Mike convicted of murder, an escape from prison and more I'd rather you read about in the novel. I also started to like the Mike Angel character once I had time to get to know him. He had an interesting voice and background.
I enjoyed that this was set in Chicago rather than LA or the West Coast as is so typical. It had a great feel for that city and the corruption so rife there.
So while I can't say this novel is without faults, the good definitely outweighs the bad. If you're a fan of the hard-boiled genre, Dark Quarry is a fun read.
I must admit that I found it a bit hard to get into. The author was trying to tell too much, too soon, and he was doing a bit too much telling without letting me get into the story.
As is so often the case, the story was about a murderous woman and Mike Angel falling for her. I thought it was a bit of a problem that Angel had already started the investigation and fallen for her when the novel started. Without having gotten to know the characters at all, the reader has to believe that he would cover up her murder of her husband quite so readily. This involves piling quite a lot of backstory in the first chapter.
As I said, this makes the mystery a bit hard to get into, and while metphors and similes are traditional to the hard-boiled genre, the author also piles those on a little heavily in the first chapter. Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of readers may not get past those initial problems, because Dark Quarry is a good mystery and very well written.
Once the author slows down and relaxes into his writing, in chapter two the story starts getting interested as the author gets away from backstory and starts showing the character of Mike Angel in action. The plot took some twists that surprised me, a good thing in a mystery. The writing is solid and the pacing, after that first chapter, nice and brisk.
The dead body in Chapter one might be a little too soon, and I questioned whether Mike Angel really would have covered up for Kimbra. But in the next chapter as the author brings in more characters and you start to understand Mike more, it starts to make sense and, of course, as expected, Kimbra isn't someone he necessarily should have helped. Soon she has taken off, and so has a lot of money.
The plot, which then brings in a mobster gang known as the Purple gang, gets a lot more complicated than you would first expect with Mike convicted of murder, an escape from prison and more I'd rather you read about in the novel. I also started to like the Mike Angel character once I had time to get to know him. He had an interesting voice and background.
I enjoyed that this was set in Chicago rather than LA or the West Coast as is so typical. It had a great feel for that city and the corruption so rife there.
So while I can't say this novel is without faults, the good definitely outweighs the bad. If you're a fan of the hard-boiled genre, Dark Quarry is a fun read.
October 23, 2014
This wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't a good book. It was too disjointed, like the author couldn't decide which story to tell so he told them all. And didn't finish a couple or tie them together! IMHO anyway.
Mike Angel is a private eye who gets drawn into several beautiful women's problems. I suppose it's supposed to be Mickey Spilane ish but sometimes was crude and, I couldn't keep track of which story we were on now from one night to the next.
Sorry, it just wasn't for me.
Mike Angel is a private eye who gets drawn into several beautiful women's problems. I suppose it's supposed to be Mickey Spilane ish but sometimes was crude and, I couldn't keep track of which story we were on now from one night to the next.
Sorry, it just wasn't for me.
May 9, 2016
Dark Quarry was a good story, the problem that I have with it and the reason I rate it as a three star read is the language, the language, slang, and idioms would have been appropriate for a story taking place in the thirties or forties, but not for one taking place in the sixties. Private investigators didn't think or talk in the sixties the way Mike talks and thinks in this story and it's a distraction for the reader, at least it was for this reader.
May 6, 2023
The book had promise, but it fell flat. Story takes place in early 1960s, but the dialogue is bad 1940s-1950s. It was a disjointed story that left me frequently scratching my head. I agree with what one reviewer said: it seemed like David Fears had a lot of story ideas but couldn’t decide which one to tell. So he told them all and the story suffers for it. Many people are saying Mike Angel is supposed to be similar to Mike Hammer. Only in the faintest way. It just wasn’t compelling and it was not a book that I could not put down. I got this book and another one, Dark Blonde, for free. If Dark Blonde is anything like this one, then I am going to be done with Mike Angel and David Fears.
May 13, 2018
A good read, along the lines of Mike Hammer, Philip Marlow and Sam Spade.
May 21, 2019
Dark Quarry (1)
This is a good action packed adventure that keeps your interest from start to finish. The author has used the characters to get the best results for the story.
This is a good action packed adventure that keeps your interest from start to finish. The author has used the characters to get the best results for the story.
November 20, 2011
Burdened by the unsolved murder of his father, a career NYPD lieutenant whose “voice” warns whenever danger is near, 30-year-old Mike Angel is a Korean vet and bored private investigator of insurance fraud. When a wealthy ex-college buddy hires him to tail Joe Ambler, a petty blackmailer, Mike fixates on Kimbra, a stunning beauty who kills the blackmailer. Mike impulsively helps her dispose of the body and finds himself on the wrong side of the law.
Mike discovers the dead man was the grandson of a feared and legendary mob leader, founder of Detroit’s Purple Gang of the 1920s and 30s. The same week, a well-dressed thug comes looking for Ambler, and the wealthy buddy who hired Mike runs off with Kimbra and is murdered in the Bahamas.
Kimbra disappears. While searching for her Mike stumbles across connections to the Russian-Cuban branch of the ring responsible for a string of unsolved murders in three states. The discovery leads to a chain of events and a frame up. Mike is convicted of murder, and is sent to the federal prison at Trenton, where the warden enlists him in a jailbreak with a hardened criminal with ties to the Purple gang.
Mike locates the witness and evidence that will clear him, and discovers the frame and the escape were both setups. After a shootout, a crooked judge yanks Mike’s investigator’s license so he moves to Chicago to follow leads to more remnants of the Purple gang. He sets up an office and is helped by Molly Bennett who becomes his main love interest and a major character in the series, along with Rick Anthony, Mike’s late father’s partner on the NYPD, who becomes Mike’s partner. Mikes struggles with alcohol and commitment to Molly, and is sidetracked his efforts to nail the kingpins of the gang.
January 18, 2014
5 stars for David H Fears as a person, 3 stars for myself and my naïve, but fossilized mind. A book of this length regularly takes me a few days to complete, cover-to-cover. Because of my mindset this book took me much longer. My book collection does not contain any other books by Mr. Fears. I was actually glad to be finished reading Dark Quarry. Combing hardboiled mystery with a historical setting, metaphors and similes, Dark Quarry is a good mystery and very well written. My suggestion is that if you have an inquisitive mind and enter the reading of this book with no expectations, you'll experience a multitude of emotions ! ! !
October 17, 2014
If you like Mickey Spillane type mysteries set in the early 60's with a hardened and scarred PI, you'll like David Fears Mike Angel series. The guy is always looking for the damsel in distress that he can save, yet rarely does he succeed. The story is written in first person and Fears pulls it off with ease. Sarcasm, sex, self-exploration, danger, suspense, and a great sense of humor, especially when it comes to his own choices in life. He's not the tough guy that he portrays to the world, but he's not afraid to bleed either. A good story.
June 5, 2011
A fast paced detective story as told to us through the eyes of hard boiled PI Mike Angel, a likeable character in spite of himself. Not my usual genre but I enjoyed this well written tale, and particularly the main character's sense of humor and his way with words. Lots of action. I would recommend it to anyone who likes mysteries, detective stories, and historical fiction.
September 8, 2012
Took me a while but after reading book three and four of this series I finally made it to the first. With that I would have to say I understand a little more about Mike and his path. If you are looking for a great mystery series to start this would be that starting point. Hopefully David takes my suggestion and keeps this series alive with more books.
January 27, 2016
The clues never stay burried
Mike Angel has a gift or is it a curse with the ladies. Sharing their deep secrets with him as they relying him to satisfy their needs for closure digs him deep into a cold bottomless hole. Can he save them and survive their grasp on his weakness for giving them what they desperately want?
Mike Angel has a gift or is it a curse with the ladies. Sharing their deep secrets with him as they relying him to satisfy their needs for closure digs him deep into a cold bottomless hole. Can he save them and survive their grasp on his weakness for giving them what they desperately want?
November 18, 2015
Um
Don't really know how I liked this book. An easy read, a bit sappy. Storyline held true and easy to follow. Just didn't grab me. Will read another one of this author's work to see if I enjoy more.
Don't really know how I liked this book. An easy read, a bit sappy. Storyline held true and easy to follow. Just didn't grab me. Will read another one of this author's work to see if I enjoy more.
December 29, 2015
I kept hearing that voice-over from Mickey Spillaine or something like that from television ... Familiar on the one hand, but annoying on the other hand. Mike Angel hears voices, which makes him either psychic or stark raving mad - take your pick.
April 19, 2016
The new Purple is Russian Red.
Wild women love the Angel and Mike loves them as well.
This is a very quick read with a lot of action,sex,murder and mayhem. From New Jersey, to Chicago to Mattoon, Ill
Wild women love the Angel and Mike loves them as well.
This is a very quick read with a lot of action,sex,murder and mayhem. From New Jersey, to Chicago to Mattoon, Ill
May 16, 2011
If you're a fan of hard-boiled mysteries, check out the Mike Angel series -- good stuff!
April 14, 2013
Written in classic American PI style, this is a story of murder and mobsters set in the early sixties. PI Mike Angel appears to be totally irresistible to every dame that crosses his path.
January 13, 2012
Set in the 1960s. Protagonist is a PI who calls women "dames" and says they have "moxie". A little too stereotypical for my taste.
December 2, 2012
Good noir thriller but I found the story a little confusing
October 7, 2014
Good read - not as good as some, but better than others
Had a fast start with lot of tricks and turns. Writes sex like he really understands the "ins and outs ".
ewalbritton
Had a fast start with lot of tricks and turns. Writes sex like he really understands the "ins and outs ".
ewalbritton
October 28, 2015
Great Writing!
I liked the dry humor this author gave to life experience. The main character was a bit too much sometimes but this made the story interesting.
I liked the dry humor this author gave to life experience. The main character was a bit too much sometimes but this made the story interesting.
October 30, 2015
Borimg
Dark Quarry was such a disappointment. It was mostly boring with a few interesting high spots. I guess I'm just not into the 1950s private eye stories.
Dark Quarry was such a disappointment. It was mostly boring with a few interesting high spots. I guess I'm just not into the 1950s private eye stories.
November 14, 2015
Review
I really enjoyed reading this book. I grew up in the 50s and 60s. I mostly enjoyed the banter and the real thoughts and language of the characters. Thanks.
I really enjoyed reading this book. I grew up in the 50s and 60s. I mostly enjoyed the banter and the real thoughts and language of the characters. Thanks.
Want to read
February 15, 2016erotica, mystery, chicago, 1960s
March 12, 2015
Glad this was a free book on book bub. Couldn't make it through.
August 4, 2015
Made myself read half of it & had to give up. Absolutely no substance. Just plain tacky & awful.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews