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Leo Haggerty Mystery #1
Embrace the Wolf
A world-weary PI cracks open an ice-cold kidnapping case
The police stopped looking for Herb Saunders’s daughters long ago, but Saunders never stopped hoping they were still alive. Five years after Tina and Molly walked off, a call comes from a man with an icy voice who says he has Saunders’s girls. Three days of tortured waiting later, another call comes in and he hears one daughter’s voice. The other, says the man on the phone, doesn’t speak anymore.
Saunders traces the call, and then disappears, gone in search of the kidnapper. Finding out what happened to this desperate father and his long-gone children falls to Leo Haggerty, a private investigator who knows Washington, DC, better than anyone—and who is about to discover a dark side of the nation’s capital that’s better left unseen.
Embrace the Wolf is the 1st book in the Leo Haggerty Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
The police stopped looking for Herb Saunders’s daughters long ago, but Saunders never stopped hoping they were still alive. Five years after Tina and Molly walked off, a call comes from a man with an icy voice who says he has Saunders’s girls. Three days of tortured waiting later, another call comes in and he hears one daughter’s voice. The other, says the man on the phone, doesn’t speak anymore.
Saunders traces the call, and then disappears, gone in search of the kidnapper. Finding out what happened to this desperate father and his long-gone children falls to Leo Haggerty, a private investigator who knows Washington, DC, better than anyone—and who is about to discover a dark side of the nation’s capital that’s better left unseen.
Embrace the Wolf is the 1st book in the Leo Haggerty Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
207 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1981
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36 people want to read
About the author
Benjamin M. Schutz
26 books4 followersBenjamin M. Schutz is the author of the acclaimed psychological thriller, The Mongol Reply. He is a forensic psychologist and lives in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 10, 2023
The first book in the Leo Haggerty private detective series begins with a heart-wrenching situation where a couple of young girls, twin sisters, have been abducted. Their father has put his life on hold as he holds out hopes of their return. It’s a confronting opening and immediately sets the tone of the book.
Leo Haggerty is a private detective based in Washington DC and he’s brought into the case by Margaret Saunders, the mother of the missing girls. Her husband, Herb has also suddenly disappeared, presumably following a lead on his daughters. She hires Haggerty to find her husband.
A number of small leads in Washington draw Haggerty to an S&M brothel where he extracts some information from a dubious contact. This, along with some information from the co-operative police detective assigned the case points him out of town.
The case leads him to a small town in North Carolina and almost immediately he finds himself rescuing a woman who is being gang raped in the bathroom of a bar. This particular encounter manages to establish him as the quintessential knight errant as he demonstrates a willingness to take on a roomful of men using brute force and aggression in the bid to save a stranger. It’s an act that speaks volumes for his character, something further enhanced by the care and compassion he displays towards her following the scene.
It also adds a little zing to the storyline by effectively putting danger on his tail to go with the danger he’s moving towards.
It feels as though we’re only getting the smallest taste of the resources that Haggerty has at his disposal. Towards the end of the book, as things are coming to a head he begins ringing friends who can provide him with specialist skills. They are all busy at that time leaving him to deal with the problem himself and then, once things are over, they make an appearance and each of them appear to have rather interesting backgrounds. Perhaps we’ll see more of them later in the series?
This is an old-school detective novel, hard boiled all the way and Haggerty is not afraid to use his fists or his gun when faced with danger. He appears to be very much in the mold of Loren Estleman’s Amos Walker. Heck, he’s in the mold of any number of tough, smart-mouthed shamuses to be honest.
But what he exhibits in the course of proceedings is a finely tuned sense of right and wrong along with a caring and sensitive nature.
While the case itself didn’t exactly blow me away, it certainly provided me with enough to want to read more of the series which runs for 6 books in total. Embrace the Wolf was a finalist for the 1986 Shamus Award for Best Debut PI Novel.
Leo Haggerty is a private detective based in Washington DC and he’s brought into the case by Margaret Saunders, the mother of the missing girls. Her husband, Herb has also suddenly disappeared, presumably following a lead on his daughters. She hires Haggerty to find her husband.
A number of small leads in Washington draw Haggerty to an S&M brothel where he extracts some information from a dubious contact. This, along with some information from the co-operative police detective assigned the case points him out of town.
The case leads him to a small town in North Carolina and almost immediately he finds himself rescuing a woman who is being gang raped in the bathroom of a bar. This particular encounter manages to establish him as the quintessential knight errant as he demonstrates a willingness to take on a roomful of men using brute force and aggression in the bid to save a stranger. It’s an act that speaks volumes for his character, something further enhanced by the care and compassion he displays towards her following the scene.
It also adds a little zing to the storyline by effectively putting danger on his tail to go with the danger he’s moving towards.
It feels as though we’re only getting the smallest taste of the resources that Haggerty has at his disposal. Towards the end of the book, as things are coming to a head he begins ringing friends who can provide him with specialist skills. They are all busy at that time leaving him to deal with the problem himself and then, once things are over, they make an appearance and each of them appear to have rather interesting backgrounds. Perhaps we’ll see more of them later in the series?
This is an old-school detective novel, hard boiled all the way and Haggerty is not afraid to use his fists or his gun when faced with danger. He appears to be very much in the mold of Loren Estleman’s Amos Walker. Heck, he’s in the mold of any number of tough, smart-mouthed shamuses to be honest.
But what he exhibits in the course of proceedings is a finely tuned sense of right and wrong along with a caring and sensitive nature.
While the case itself didn’t exactly blow me away, it certainly provided me with enough to want to read more of the series which runs for 6 books in total. Embrace the Wolf was a finalist for the 1986 Shamus Award for Best Debut PI Novel.
January 12, 2020
Goofy and over the top.
November 2, 2013
I'm a big reader of crime fiction, but I don't typically seek out older series to check out. However, I was told the Leo Haggerty series is set in my native Washington, D.C., so I thought I would track down this first of the six books. Published almost thirty years ago, it introduces P.I. Leo Haggerty and his involvement in a notorious (but fictional) missing persons case. Five years ago, twin girls were kidnapped and the intervening years have brought no respite for the parents. One night, they get a phone call from the kidnapper indicating they are still alive and the father disappears in pursuit. Haggerty is asked to find the father and get him to stop chasing wild leads.
The first third of the short book has Haggerty retracing the father's footsteps, and uncovering a clue, one that leads him to an S&M impresario, who caters to the control needs of the nation's capital. I guess this angle would have been pretty shocking when the book was published, but it reads somewhat quaintly in an era when you can pull up similar scenes in a matter of seconds from any computer. The latter two-thirds of the book take Haggerty to coastal North Carolina in pursuit of the father. There, he gets interrupts the gang-rape of a college student in a dive bar. This rather significant sublplot then kind of takes over the book to a large degree, and Haggerty has to juggle that affair and its ramifications with the business that took him there to begin with.
The stuff about the rape and the delicate friendship that develops between Haggerty and the victim is actually the best writing in the book. The author was a clinical psychologist, and is able to incorporate that knowledge very well into the story. Similarly, while the hunt for the kidnapper is rather humdrum, the scenes that get into his psychology -- including one super-creepy "confession" to a priest -- are very very good.
So while I didn't love the story, I did quite like Haggerty as a character. He's got a nice mix of snark and bite, without being too clever or too grim. Like most detectives in fiction, he's a cynic, but not overly world-weary, and thankfully, he doesn't have some trademark flaw, like being an alcoholic or whatever. I will definitely read at least the next two in the series (All the Old Bargains and A Tax in the Blood) to see if he remains engaging, and to see if the plotting improves.
Note: Almost none of the book takes place in Washington, D.C. Like the author, Haggerty lives in the suburbs of northern Virginia. As mentioned above, the bulk of the book takes place in North Carolina, and the part that takes place in D.C. almost entirely takes place in the suburbs of Potomac and Rockville.
The first third of the short book has Haggerty retracing the father's footsteps, and uncovering a clue, one that leads him to an S&M impresario, who caters to the control needs of the nation's capital. I guess this angle would have been pretty shocking when the book was published, but it reads somewhat quaintly in an era when you can pull up similar scenes in a matter of seconds from any computer. The latter two-thirds of the book take Haggerty to coastal North Carolina in pursuit of the father. There, he gets interrupts the gang-rape of a college student in a dive bar. This rather significant sublplot then kind of takes over the book to a large degree, and Haggerty has to juggle that affair and its ramifications with the business that took him there to begin with.
The stuff about the rape and the delicate friendship that develops between Haggerty and the victim is actually the best writing in the book. The author was a clinical psychologist, and is able to incorporate that knowledge very well into the story. Similarly, while the hunt for the kidnapper is rather humdrum, the scenes that get into his psychology -- including one super-creepy "confession" to a priest -- are very very good.
So while I didn't love the story, I did quite like Haggerty as a character. He's got a nice mix of snark and bite, without being too clever or too grim. Like most detectives in fiction, he's a cynic, but not overly world-weary, and thankfully, he doesn't have some trademark flaw, like being an alcoholic or whatever. I will definitely read at least the next two in the series (All the Old Bargains and A Tax in the Blood) to see if he remains engaging, and to see if the plotting improves.
Note: Almost none of the book takes place in Washington, D.C. Like the author, Haggerty lives in the suburbs of northern Virginia. As mentioned above, the bulk of the book takes place in North Carolina, and the part that takes place in D.C. almost entirely takes place in the suburbs of Potomac and Rockville.
July 2, 2012
In the contemporary hard-boiled revival begun by Robert B. Parker there are a lot of writers trying to cash in by writing in that same 'Spencer' style. Okay so, there can be only one innovator and that makes the rest look like 'followers' but let's not overlook genuine, earnest, hard-working talent. I would characterize Ben Schutz as this type of writer.
I wasn't expecting much; but he showed enough sincere creativity and effort with his freshman outing that I really had to give him proper credit. He comes up with intriguing situations and characters; stuff that will stick in your mind years after you've set the title aside. Writes with enthusiasm and pizazz.
'Embrace the Wolf' is simply a fun, fun read with the right mixture of menace and resonance. Much lighter than the utterly freaky Andrew Vachss, but not soft like Parker, either. Heartily endorse this title and recommend you give it a try.
I wasn't expecting much; but he showed enough sincere creativity and effort with his freshman outing that I really had to give him proper credit. He comes up with intriguing situations and characters; stuff that will stick in your mind years after you've set the title aside. Writes with enthusiasm and pizazz.
'Embrace the Wolf' is simply a fun, fun read with the right mixture of menace and resonance. Much lighter than the utterly freaky Andrew Vachss, but not soft like Parker, either. Heartily endorse this title and recommend you give it a try.
October 29, 2008
Decent PI read. Had a bit too much going on though and one of the plot points was S&M which I really don‘t care to read about. Not sure if I will go on with this series since there are so many others that I want to read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews