Devil's Heaven

Neil Hockaday Mystery #4

by Thomas Adcock

A killer targets New York’s gay community in this “well-plotted” police procedural in the Edgar-winning series (Publishers Weekly).   Neil Hockaday’s on furlough from the NYPD as he attempts to cut back on the booze, but his new wife, Ruby, is going back to her advertising job after the couple’s trip to Ireland. Unfortunately, the same day she returns to the office, her much-disliked ex-boss’s body is found, killed in grisly fashion and wearing a leather mask.   Meanwhile, some of Hock’s colleagues on the force appear less than interested in solving a string of murders in which gay men are the victims. Now the detective’s working on his own time, in cooperation with a private investigator he knows, to uncover the truth in a case that will take him everywhere from the Metropolitan Opera to the nightclubs of Manhattan.   “[A] beautifully written series.” —The Washington Post

Genres: Mystery

321 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Aka Buck Sanders (house pseudonym)

Thomas Adcock is a Detroit-born journalist and mystery novelist who won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original in 1992. His novels and short stories been translated into Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Bulgarian and Czech. He began his newspaper career at the Detroit Free Press and has written for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Chicago Today, the Toronto Telegram, the New York Law Journal and The New York Times.

Adcock has also worked at a Manhattan advertising agency and taught journalism and creative writing—at Temple University (Philadelphia), New York University, and the New School for Social Research (New York). He has been active in P.E.N. International, the Mystery Writers of America, the Czech Writers Union, and was co-founder of the North American chapter of the International Association of Crime Writers.

He and his wife, actress Kim Sykes, live in New York City and upstate North Chatham, N.Y., where they are activists in progressive political organizations

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone. The subject matter is quite graphic. The characters in the book are wonderful- compassionate and human and the "bad guys" are colorfully drawn.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite a good read. Didn't guess the culprit.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

#4 in the Neil "Hock" Hockaday series.

Neil "Hock" Hockaday series - Hock's back in the Big Apple, on furlough from the force while doing his best to stay off the sauce. His new wife, black, New Orleans-born Ruby Flagg, returns to her high-level advertising job on the day that the beaten and mutilated body of Frederick Crosby, her odious former boss, is discovered in his apartment, a leather mask across his face and his arms and legs nailed to the floorboards. At the same time, someone is killing off gay men in the city, crimes given scant attention by the NYPD. Hock unofficially hunts the killer and probes the Crosby murder, his footsteps dogged by a homophobic cop who shows up at every crime site.

[Adrienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me forever to get into this book. I almost gave up on it several times, but finally, towards the very end, it became somewhat interesting. I don't think I'll read anything else by this author.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good read though I did suspect who was behind the killings about three quarters of the way through the book.