Fire Lake

Harry Stoner Mystery #7

by Jonathan Valin

Jonathan Valin. Fire Lake. New York: Delacorte Press, [1987]. First printing. Octavo. 254 pages.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Detective

272 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1987

About the author

Jonathan Valin is an American mystery author best known for the Harry Stoner detective series. He won the Shamus Award for best mystery novel of 1989. After writing eleven Harry Stoner novels over a 14-year period, he took a break from mystery writing to help found Fi, a magazine of music criticism. He now works as an editor and reviewer for magazines.

He is an alumnus of the University of Chicago and lived there for many years.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This seventh Harry Stoner detective adventure is not quite as good as the last two. That’s okay, though: last two—Natural Causes (1983) and Life’s Work (1986) were masterpieces of the genre. Fire Lake (1987) is just a damn fine novel.

Actually—although there is a murder and a mystery included—it seems at first more like a suspense thriller, probably because the mess Cincinnati’s Harry Stoner finds himself in has nothing to do with his being a private detective. He receives a call late at night telling him that someone signed in under his name at the Encantada Motel out on Wooster Pike, and that this someone was beaten up and then tried to kill himself by taking some pills. So, Harry leaves his cozy Clifton apartment and soon discovers that “AKA Harry Stoner’ is somebody he knows: guitar wizard and heroin addict “Lonnie Jack” Jackowski, who Stoner once roomed with in college. Harry brings Lonnie home and cleans him up, and is glad to do it, for Lonnie Jack brings back memories of the ‘60s, of cool concerts at the “Black Dome” (and a few bad junkie memories too). But Lonnie disappears while Stoner is off on an errand, and soon his life is turned upside down when a bunch of very bad men—and one bad-news cop as well, come looking for him, convinced he’s ripped them off for Lonnie’s big score.

There are a lot of exciting scenes of violence, some grim evocations of junkie despair, and a few nice character sketches as well. And the mystery is a good one, when it comes, and the murderer is a suprise. But perhaps the best thing about the novel for me—who is a huge Harry Stoner fan—is that Fire Lake is the first Harry Stoner book since The Lime Pit (1980) that features a real honest-to-god woman, instead of the flower children, graduates from Nymphet U. and straight-up bimbos that customarily drift through his adventures. No, Lonnie Jack’s ex-wife Karen is the real thing, and Stoner’s relationship with her is the highlight of the book.

The rest of the novel is very good too, and you mystery fans should read it. But read Natural Causes and Life’s Work first.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is pure genre fiction - not bad, if you look at it from that point of view. Harry Stoner, a private detective, is called out of bed by the night clerk of a sleazy motel because his phone number was found among the papers of a suicidal guest who checked in under the name of ... Harry Stoner. To his surprise, the half-conscious man is his old acquaintance Lonnie Jack. The two had not met since the late 1960s, when Lonnie wanted to pursue his dreams of rock stardom and Vietnam vet Stoner was trying to figure out what to do with his life.

Stoner takes his former friend home, and from then on, things become a sequence of murder, beatings, bluffs and posturing. Lonnie soon vanishes from Stoner's apartment, the night clerk is murdered, and Stoner, aided and abetted by Lonnie's ex-wife, is soon pursuing the details of a drug deal gone bad among a group of folks who have never truly left the 1960s.

As mentioned : genre fiction, with all the usual trappings. A hard-boiled detective. Corrupt cops. Jive-talking drug dealers. Sleazy bars and strung-out teenage girls. And a lovely, lonely woman who falls into bed with our hero within pages of meeting him, only to leave him at the end.

[Peggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this audiobook. Jonathan Valin writes about Harry Stoner, a hard-boiled P.I. (former cop) in Cincinnati. Full cheesy noir, these books are a fun, fast read. I would have given this 3 stars instead of 2 if I hadn't figured out who the bad guy was way early. Harry learns someone has used his name to check into a seedy motel. A friend Harry has not seen in 18 years has used Harry's name and then tries to commit suicide at the motel. Harry tries to help his friend, but the friend disappears and Harry's apartment is trashed. Harry finds his friend's ex-wife and together the look for missing man. The story involves drug dealers and drug users. Harry naturally falls for the ex-wife as they learn that Harry's friend has gotten involved with really dangerous men.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.49 stars. Harry Stoner mystery; Drug dealers after Harry and an old friend. Murder in motel. Good enough to read quickly and then look for another.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gotta love Harry Stoner, a great regional series.

[Bill Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jonathan Valin was writing classic private investigator novels in 1980s, way after the golden age, but that does not diminish the fun of the genre, indeed, I feel he brings something new to it, or may he his just writing about a time I have lived through - as opposed to 1940/50s Los Angeles. Valin writes well, compellingly but also with purpose. When an old friend from the 1960s makes contact after many years disconnected, Harry Stoner is thrown into past relationships, but with a contemporary crime to deal with. What I found really interesting was the analysis, that sits well within the narrative, of the shift from 1960s peace and love and the 'recreational drugs' of the time into the harsher, nihilistic drug use and brutal trade of the 1980s and, by extension, beyond the book, into the present day. The tone is often desperate, violent and presents an almost hopeless view of the world as it is today - or maybe that's just me projecting on the story. It is a novel that asks more questions than its private eye.

[Sandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not like this entry in the series quite as well as some of the previous ones because the main character, PI Harry Stoner, let his nostalgia for the sixties override his usual common sense but it was well written and the journey through the drug culture of mid- eighties Cincinnati seemed authentic.

[Cindy B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook is read well but some duplicate entries require better editing.

[Carol Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh so seedy -- and bloody -- and wonderful!

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: why would someone use Harry Stoner's name to check into a run-down motel and then commit suicide?

[Elly Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked this a lot. Much about the 60s and the side I didn't experience.