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Steve Martinez #3
Cache of Corpses
Porcupine City is a peaceful little town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The residents enjoy a quiet life far removed from the comings and goings of larger cities. The kind of town where everyone knows everyone else and good-natured gossip is a prime source of entertainment. It's certainly the last place anyone would think of using as the backdrop for a high-tech, high-thrill treasure hunt.
Until the first gruesome clue is a headless corpse wrapped in plastic.
Deputy Steve Martinez--Lakota Indian by birth, Porcupine City native by association--has investigated many crimes, but none more surprising than the case before him now. When clues at the first crime scene lead to the discovery of a second headless corpse, it becomes clear to Steve that it's someone's twisted idea of a game. And these events couldn't come at worse the election for county sheriff is fast approaching and the sudden rash of corpses is just the sort of ammunition Steve's opponent is all too eager to use against him. Luckily Steve's longtime love, beautiful redhead Ginny Fitzgerald, is still by his side, but even that relationship becomes strained as Steve searches for a way to connect with her foster son, Tommy.
This is Steve's toughest investigation yet--one that spreads from secretive internet chatrooms into Chicago's seedy underbelly and even takes to the air above Porcupine City. It will take all of Deputy Martinez's patience and cunning to catch a sociopath who's after the next forbidden rush. It might also force him to face some unpleasant truths about the locals he has sworn to protect.
Until the first gruesome clue is a headless corpse wrapped in plastic.
Deputy Steve Martinez--Lakota Indian by birth, Porcupine City native by association--has investigated many crimes, but none more surprising than the case before him now. When clues at the first crime scene lead to the discovery of a second headless corpse, it becomes clear to Steve that it's someone's twisted idea of a game. And these events couldn't come at worse the election for county sheriff is fast approaching and the sudden rash of corpses is just the sort of ammunition Steve's opponent is all too eager to use against him. Luckily Steve's longtime love, beautiful redhead Ginny Fitzgerald, is still by his side, but even that relationship becomes strained as Steve searches for a way to connect with her foster son, Tommy.
This is Steve's toughest investigation yet--one that spreads from secretive internet chatrooms into Chicago's seedy underbelly and even takes to the air above Porcupine City. It will take all of Deputy Martinez's patience and cunning to catch a sociopath who's after the next forbidden rush. It might also force him to face some unpleasant truths about the locals he has sworn to protect.
- GenresMysteryMystery Thriller
304 pages, Hardcover
First published November 27, 2007
3 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
January 27, 2016
I do enjoy the Martinez series. Steve, the half Lakota deputy, is running for Sheriff at the behest of Alex, his state trooper friend, and several others in the county. He’s been quite successful in clearing some murder cases and has developed a reputation. Someone is now leaving headless and handless cadavers in assorted places. It’s a bizarre scheme involving geocaching. A bit weird.
There really isn’t much of a mystery, it’s more of a police procedural, and it’s quite clear who the bad guys are. What appeals to me about this series is the landscape, the Upper Peninsula, and the characters. The relationship between Steve and Ginny is real. You just get to like the people. I like them. In addition you can feel Kisor’s love of flying as Steve is the pilot of the sheriff department’s Skylane. (Kisor’s two non-fiction books that I have read, Flight of the Gin Fizz and Zephyr, should be on your list.) The first three volumes are available as a set from Amazon. A very pleasant read.
While this book stands alone, I recommend reading the series in order to understand the development of the relationships.
There really isn’t much of a mystery, it’s more of a police procedural, and it’s quite clear who the bad guys are. What appeals to me about this series is the landscape, the Upper Peninsula, and the characters. The relationship between Steve and Ginny is real. You just get to like the people. I like them. In addition you can feel Kisor’s love of flying as Steve is the pilot of the sheriff department’s Skylane. (Kisor’s two non-fiction books that I have read, Flight of the Gin Fizz and Zephyr, should be on your list.) The first three volumes are available as a set from Amazon. A very pleasant read.
While this book stands alone, I recommend reading the series in order to understand the development of the relationships.
July 7, 2008
A very different mystery (in a good way)! I'd never heard of geocaching and the explanations were clear and easy to grasp. I just love Steve Martinez and I really loved the last chapter of the book - very touching.
July 11, 2021
I bought this book because the author and the main character were both mentioned in another book that I really liked (not sure if it was Misery Bay or one of the Wood Cop books). I figured if the author of something I was enjoying made a point of mentioning that his main character like this series I should give it a try. What I found was likeable characters, a good plot, a good flow, and an interesting story. The writing was easy to read.
July 11, 2018
A very good read, a very somber and sober ending.
December 20, 2011
[Three 1/2 stars] When I recently remarked to a writer-friend who writes a mystery series based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, “But you’re the only one who writes about the U.P., right?,” he gave me a long, meaningful gaze. You know, the kind of gaze that makes you realize you’ve just said something really stoopid. So I did some online researching. Yeah. I did say something stoopid.
I got a list of U.P. authors, a very long list, I might add, and among them was Henry Kisor. My writer-friend had recommended Kisor, so I browsed through some electronic versions of his books, and chose this one, Cache of Corpses. It is one of a series about a detective named Steve Martinez, a Lakota Sioux by birth, now living in the very small town called Porcupine City, in the area near the Porcupine Mountains of the U.P.
The story opens like this:
“It’s in the Dying Room,” Jenny Benson said, voice strained, ample chest heaving. “And it has no head.”
Oh boy, I thought, coming in with a slam, and didn’t wait a moment to add that stereotypical detective mystery bit with a heaving ample chest. Suppressing an eye roll (hard to read that way), I settled in for the read to see where it would take me.
After a bit of a clumsy start, I became genuinely interested in the story. Not my genre, even as I am a fan of most all things U.P., and it didn’t have the delicious tang of humor I’d found in the Woods Cop series by Joe Heywood, but I appreciated the cast of northern wilderness characters and the mix of woods politics—detective Martinez is running for deputy sheriff at the time that a string of murders takes place, leaving a cache of headless, handless corpses wrapped in plastic and hidden as if on scavenger hunt for a group of weird, sociopathic geocaching game-players.
Kisor does a good job of painting his characters in bright and memorable colors. The detective himself is a likeable person, as is his three-year woman friend Ginny, a tough but warm-hearted woman living in a log cabin and keeping her wealth quiet—northern folk don’t necessarily respect monetary wealth.
Townspeople each enrich the portrait of the northern town and its history, as does the incumbent sheriff running against Martinez in the campaign. Perhaps Tommy, the young boy with a tragic childhood that Ginny wishes to adopt, comes off a bit flat and unbelievable, a little too perfect for a child emerging from a mess of alcoholic and now dead parents and a tangled foster system. But the mystery itself unfolds with increasing interest, winding through odd Internet chat rooms and big city brutes that think the tucked away northern wilderness is just the place to hide corpses. It’s a fun if stomach-churning tale, and I’d pick up another book by this author to see how he solves the next one.
Henry Kisor is a retired Chicago Sun Times book editor and an author of several fiction and nonfiction books, spending his winters in Chicago and his summers in Ontonagon County, where the Porcupine Mountains are located.
I got a list of U.P. authors, a very long list, I might add, and among them was Henry Kisor. My writer-friend had recommended Kisor, so I browsed through some electronic versions of his books, and chose this one, Cache of Corpses. It is one of a series about a detective named Steve Martinez, a Lakota Sioux by birth, now living in the very small town called Porcupine City, in the area near the Porcupine Mountains of the U.P.
The story opens like this:
“It’s in the Dying Room,” Jenny Benson said, voice strained, ample chest heaving. “And it has no head.”
Oh boy, I thought, coming in with a slam, and didn’t wait a moment to add that stereotypical detective mystery bit with a heaving ample chest. Suppressing an eye roll (hard to read that way), I settled in for the read to see where it would take me.
After a bit of a clumsy start, I became genuinely interested in the story. Not my genre, even as I am a fan of most all things U.P., and it didn’t have the delicious tang of humor I’d found in the Woods Cop series by Joe Heywood, but I appreciated the cast of northern wilderness characters and the mix of woods politics—detective Martinez is running for deputy sheriff at the time that a string of murders takes place, leaving a cache of headless, handless corpses wrapped in plastic and hidden as if on scavenger hunt for a group of weird, sociopathic geocaching game-players.
Kisor does a good job of painting his characters in bright and memorable colors. The detective himself is a likeable person, as is his three-year woman friend Ginny, a tough but warm-hearted woman living in a log cabin and keeping her wealth quiet—northern folk don’t necessarily respect monetary wealth.
Townspeople each enrich the portrait of the northern town and its history, as does the incumbent sheriff running against Martinez in the campaign. Perhaps Tommy, the young boy with a tragic childhood that Ginny wishes to adopt, comes off a bit flat and unbelievable, a little too perfect for a child emerging from a mess of alcoholic and now dead parents and a tangled foster system. But the mystery itself unfolds with increasing interest, winding through odd Internet chat rooms and big city brutes that think the tucked away northern wilderness is just the place to hide corpses. It’s a fun if stomach-churning tale, and I’d pick up another book by this author to see how he solves the next one.
Henry Kisor is a retired Chicago Sun Times book editor and an author of several fiction and nonfiction books, spending his winters in Chicago and his summers in Ontonagon County, where the Porcupine Mountains are located.
December 11, 2007
Cache is the third in a series featuring Deputy Steve Martinez a Lakota Indian who was raised by a Methodist preacher in upstate New York but who found a home and a career in Upper Peninsula Michigan.
The "cache" of the title is a play on the hook for the novel's plot: the modern day treasure hunt hobby of geocaching. When Martinez finds a headless body wrapped in a plastic bag he has no idea that it will connect him to this burgeoning hobby and prove to be one of his most difficult, and dangerous, cases yet. But as further clues, and corpses, are found it becomes clear that someone has turned this technological sport into a deadly game. To further complicate matters, Martinez is running for sheriff against his old boss Eli Garrow. This is not the best time to have bodies pilling up and an unresolved case ripe for gossip.
I will confess that I have a soft spot for the characters and setting of Kisor's mysteries. I have Native American roots and, having been born and raised in Michigan, have spent some memorable summers in the UP. But regardless of whether you know anything about the area, or have any connection to it, the Upper Peninsula makes for an interesting setting and Kisor makes the most of it.
No one will mistake Kisor's books for thrillers. His style is more laid back and comfortable. But the skill with which he weaves his stories, the care he takes in developing his characters, and the love he has for the setting, and the resulting insight and detail, all make his mysteries enjoyable reads. There is a "realness" for lack of a better term, that he brings to the mystery genre that makes it at once comfortable but almost educational - not in a dry and academic sense but in an exciting and interesting sense. Kisor's innate curiosity and good nature come through and cause his characters to come alive
The "cache" of the title is a play on the hook for the novel's plot: the modern day treasure hunt hobby of geocaching. When Martinez finds a headless body wrapped in a plastic bag he has no idea that it will connect him to this burgeoning hobby and prove to be one of his most difficult, and dangerous, cases yet. But as further clues, and corpses, are found it becomes clear that someone has turned this technological sport into a deadly game. To further complicate matters, Martinez is running for sheriff against his old boss Eli Garrow. This is not the best time to have bodies pilling up and an unresolved case ripe for gossip.
I will confess that I have a soft spot for the characters and setting of Kisor's mysteries. I have Native American roots and, having been born and raised in Michigan, have spent some memorable summers in the UP. But regardless of whether you know anything about the area, or have any connection to it, the Upper Peninsula makes for an interesting setting and Kisor makes the most of it.
No one will mistake Kisor's books for thrillers. His style is more laid back and comfortable. But the skill with which he weaves his stories, the care he takes in developing his characters, and the love he has for the setting, and the resulting insight and detail, all make his mysteries enjoyable reads. There is a "realness" for lack of a better term, that he brings to the mystery genre that makes it at once comfortable but almost educational - not in a dry and academic sense but in an exciting and interesting sense. Kisor's innate curiosity and good nature come through and cause his characters to come alive
June 22, 2008
I liked it okay overall but the logical leap the lead character makes from corpses to caches is just what it says in the book (and I paraphrase) "a coincidence that only happens in dime-store mysteries."
The character was refering to a different aspect of it, but it holds true anyway.
If the coded numbers had been deciphered beforehand...at least enough to know the digits and the sequence, then maybe the leap would have made more sense, but not the way things happend in the book. At the point in the story where he makes the leap there just hasn't been enough revealed to leap to geocached dead bodies.
I did like the overall character development though, and the ending was pretty good.
The character was refering to a different aspect of it, but it holds true anyway.
If the coded numbers had been deciphered beforehand...at least enough to know the digits and the sequence, then maybe the leap would have made more sense, but not the way things happend in the book. At the point in the story where he makes the leap there just hasn't been enough revealed to leap to geocached dead bodies.
I did like the overall character development though, and the ending was pretty good.
August 7, 2008
Okay, I admit it was the squirrel holding a spent cartridge on the cover that got my attention.
I am not a fan of first person narrative, and this was rather slow going for the first half of the book. However, once it got moving, it kept on at a good clip.
Some good ideas & characters. Plus it's set in Michigan, which is kind of cool.
I am not a fan of first person narrative, and this was rather slow going for the first half of the book. However, once it got moving, it kept on at a good clip.
Some good ideas & characters. Plus it's set in Michigan, which is kind of cool.
June 6, 2010
A mystery based on a rogue geocaching event with dead bodies serving as the caches. The angle was intriguing and there was a lot of hiking and description of outdoors. However, the characterization was flat and the writing style very plain and straightforward. The last chapter was a tying up of all the ends – very formulaic mystery.
May 30, 2008
This is a story about something called geocaching. I'd never heard of it. You hide something in a place with a specific satelite coordinance. Then you give clues so people can locate it and add to it. Only there is a twist to this story. The Caches are bodies. A good mystery and quick read.
August 23, 2011
Very Good; Continuing character: Steve Martinez; bodies are turning up in the U.P. and seem tied to a "geocaching" contest; while dealing with that Martinez is also running to unseat the current sheriff
December 7, 2007
read 12.06.07
This is the first book I've read by this author. It was well written and moved along well; no boring parts. I'll definitely read his other books.
This is the first book I've read by this author. It was well written and moved along well; no boring parts. I'll definitely read his other books.
January 12, 2008
just as good as a mystery can get.
February 3, 2008
Okay book. Not so great of a mystery. Seems like a series that could develop into something good. Characters are a little 2 dimensional at the moment.
August 16, 2010
started a bit slow, but picked up speed around the middle and had a great ending
August 23, 2012
This is a three star mystery, light and entertaining. I uprated it because of the author's descriptions of the setting in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
October 4, 2012
I continue to like the core stories, but some of the asides are repetitive, really obvious, and really get in the way of the flow of the story.
January 27, 2014
I really enjoyed this mystery because it contained geocaching, a murder mystery, Native slants on life, and an upper Midwest background.
January 16, 2013
Interesting characters and setting. Good story. Not sure that I would read other books in the series.
October 2, 2014
Really enjoyed this book. Readers of the Longmire series would like this series as well. Great characters, some humor & likeable main characters. I'll have to find more books by Mr. Kisor!
November 22, 2014
Good mystery with geocaching essential to the story. Something different!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews