Maitland

Evan Maitland #1

by James Patrick Hunt

Evan Maitland is co-owner and operator of Collette's Antiques, an upscale furniture store in Chicago. He's also a bail enforcement agent/bounty hunter. On a cold January night, a bail bondsman hires Maitland to find Barry McDermott, a lawyer charged with statutory rape. What appears to be a simple retrieval turns into something far more complicated. Maitland is shot in a gunfight and kills a man in self defense. After recovering from his injury, Maitland returns to Chicago and tries to put his life back together. But someone wants Maitland dead. With assassins on all sides, and only a determined Chicago policewoman to back him up, Maitland has to play this new game by his rules if he wants to stay alive. James Patrick Hunt presently practices law in Oklahoma City.

Genres: Mystery

247 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2005

About the author

James Patrick Hunt is the author of several books and e-books. He was born in Surrey, England in 1964 and graduated from St. Louis University with a degree in aerospace engineering in 1986. He graduated from Marquette University Law School in 1992. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he writes and practices law.

Reviews

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borrowed this through interlibrary loan from a different library that had it in their Mystery section. This is definitely not a mystery - Maitland is a bail enforcer, we know all the players and their motivations, and we know who kills whom - but it is a decent cops and robbers type action book. I have some quibbles over how some of the plot goes, but they're mostly my quibbles after reading so many mysteries and the like.
Honestly, my biggest issue is with the author's use of racial (and other) slurs. Yes, the people calling the black Jamaicans ni**ers are other black people and some other characters we're supposed to hate. Yes, the female cop that calls Mel Gibson's sexuality into question is in a highly stressful situation. (She'd been shot and they're rushing to the hospital.) But when Maitland thinks about what she said, he say she called Gibson a fa**ot. And when the rural cops are joking about all the dead black people, Maitland isn't upset that they're being racist, he's upset that they're standing around joking when they should be searching for the escaped bad guy. So the "hero" of the book is, essentially, a bigot or at least okay with other people displaying their bigotry. And so, apparently, is the author.
This was going to be a four-star review, because really, it's a decent story. But I'm not gonna support this kind of "wink wink nudge nudge" bigotry.

[Freda Witt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Antique dealer, ex- cop, part time bounty hunter, Greg gets mixed up with the mob when he tries to bring in a lawyer gone AWOL. He loses a lung, and almost his life. I like this series, will go back and start from the first

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Joe O'Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very Good; Continuing character: Evan Maitland (first in series); a part-time bounty hunter goes after a sex offender and finds himself facing off with the man's other enemies, members of a Jamaican gang

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

the mc and female characters are interesting; the plot is fine. however, the language usage is distracting: jamaican accents and the "hard guy" word choices seem unrealistic. will try next in series.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

pellecanos, lehane, and attica locke

[Bender · Rating 1 out of 5]

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