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A Season for Violence
They hopped a boxcar and made a run for it. He was a wanted man -- she was a woman who thought she's found her man. It was an outlawed passion, and it was doomed from the start...for crime always has a cost, and a life on the run is no life at all -- unless you're willing to risk everything!
208 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1966
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About the author
Thomas B. Dewey
85 books8 followersThomas Blanchard Dewey was an American author of hardboiled crime novels. He created two series of novels: the first one features Mac, a private investigator from Chicago, the second features Pete Schofield.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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May 14, 2021From 1966
I do not want to read this. Much like the other book of his I read, Can a Mermaid Kill?, It started out good and then got boring. Another plot sequence with a 50 year old married woman seducing the gardner. Happened in Hitchens' Footsteps in the Night, and I felt like I'd seen it before then. Not too interesting.
I do not want to read this. Much like the other book of his I read, Can a Mermaid Kill?, It started out good and then got boring. Another plot sequence with a 50 year old married woman seducing the gardner. Happened in Hitchens' Footsteps in the Night, and I felt like I'd seen it before then. Not too interesting.
September 16, 2017
Dewey strays from his comfortable crime novel genre and attempts a drama involving a large cast of country club politicians and their powerful allies whose lives become unhinged during a scandal involving one of their own rich kids, and an upswing in drug trafficking. The novel starts out slowly - introducing many characters, then picks up steam a bit as the the lives of the characters begin to intertwine. Dewey manages to tie up the loose ends to a satisfying conclusion, although too many characters and an unfocused, meandering plot drag this one down.
January 9, 2020
Great cover. Terrific author. But, unfortunately, this is not one of Dewey's better novels. For those of us who have enjoyed his Mac series and his Pete Schofield series, this standalone novel is a
disappointment. It reads at a slow, ponderous pace and is at once a pulp tale, a Peyton Place thing about a small town, and a Perry Mason legal tale. But, it's all over the place and neither one thing nor the other.
disappointment. It reads at a slow, ponderous pace and is at once a pulp tale, a Peyton Place thing about a small town, and a Perry Mason legal tale. But, it's all over the place and neither one thing nor the other.
October 16, 2023
What a tremendous disappointment. I bought this for my Kindle assuming (and you know what happens when you assume) that it would be one of their excellent pulp novels. Nope. This read like a two-parter of Law and Order. I did not want to read that.
The book follows forty-eight hours in the lives of several characters, with a DA being the primary protagonist. He's watching one of his men try a newsworthy story involving a rich boy who's raped a poor girl, igniting passions on both sides. He's additionally considering a run for the Senate, trying to maintain a relationship with his wife who doesn't believe he's working at the office late at night, and trying to decide if he should believe a junkie who claims to have a seen a drug drop off the shore. Add to this an unhappy woman having an affair with her gardener, the parents of the rich boy that are feuding, and the lawyer running the case of the DA who doesn't think his boss has his hear in it.
Pure soap opera fare, with two outrageous codas that would make Dick Wolf proud.
This was a chore to get through.
The book follows forty-eight hours in the lives of several characters, with a DA being the primary protagonist. He's watching one of his men try a newsworthy story involving a rich boy who's raped a poor girl, igniting passions on both sides. He's additionally considering a run for the Senate, trying to maintain a relationship with his wife who doesn't believe he's working at the office late at night, and trying to decide if he should believe a junkie who claims to have a seen a drug drop off the shore. Add to this an unhappy woman having an affair with her gardener, the parents of the rich boy that are feuding, and the lawyer running the case of the DA who doesn't think his boss has his hear in it.
Pure soap opera fare, with two outrageous codas that would make Dick Wolf proud.
This was a chore to get through.
May 14, 2025
Probably as close to lit-fic as any Gold Medal paperback gets.
Dick Kramer is the D.A., juggling a publicised rape trial, the city's growing narcotics problem, dreams of becoming a senator, and marital discord. He's a decent guy that's got a lot going on and the tension is getting to him.
Or not really. I kept waiting for the threads of this novel to come to a head, but they never really do. Everything gets resolved, but there's no crescendo. There are also a number of subplots that really have very little to do with the main story and I wonder why Dewey even included them.
Truth be told, I'm kind of disappointed by this book. I adore Dewey's Mac books, and had hoped this might be a departure, but still a decent read. But it's just not gripping. Dewey is clearly trying to say something about big issues here—rape and sexual assault, political red tape, racism, balancing work and home life—but the story never climbs to a point where it equals the message he's trying to make.
Dick Kramer is the D.A., juggling a publicised rape trial, the city's growing narcotics problem, dreams of becoming a senator, and marital discord. He's a decent guy that's got a lot going on and the tension is getting to him.
Or not really. I kept waiting for the threads of this novel to come to a head, but they never really do. Everything gets resolved, but there's no crescendo. There are also a number of subplots that really have very little to do with the main story and I wonder why Dewey even included them.
Truth be told, I'm kind of disappointed by this book. I adore Dewey's Mac books, and had hoped this might be a departure, but still a decent read. But it's just not gripping. Dewey is clearly trying to say something about big issues here—rape and sexual assault, political red tape, racism, balancing work and home life—but the story never climbs to a point where it equals the message he's trying to make.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews