2 BY MATT COYLE

2 books this week from new-to-me author Matt Coyle. 

Matt kindly offered me an ARC of his highly praised second novel Night Tremors which I was obviously happy to accept. When I realised there was an earlier book featuring the same protagonist, well I thought, in for a penny in for a pound and bought a copy.

The plan is later this month to read them back-to-back and see how I get on. I like cops and ex-cops, I like PIs in my fiction. I enjoy California set books, I like conflict, I like ex-cons trying to go straight. Oh and I like biker gangs as well!

2 books I’m really looking forward to. 

Robert Crais likes him.

Stephen Jay Schwartz likes him. 

T. Jefferson Parker likes him. 

I think I will too. 

Matt Coyle has his website here.

Yesterday's Echo

The 1st Rick Cahill crime novel

Winner of the 2014 Best First Novel Anthony Award

Winner of the Ben Franklin Silver Award for Best New Voice in Fiction

Named one of 2013's Best Mysteries by Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine!

Winner of the 2014 San Diego Book Award for Best Mystery

2014 Best First Novel Macavity Award Finalist

Murderer. The label that stains forever.

Eight years ago Rick Cahill was a young hotshot cop in Santa Barbara, geeked on the adrenal blast of the badge. Then someone murdered his wife and all fingers pointed at him. The charges were dropped but the fingers kept pointing, aided by a network TV show investigating his wife's unsolved murder.

Free from jail, but not from his past, Rick finds work back home in La Jolla. When Melody Malana walks into his restaurant, Rick is reminded of what his life felt like before he lived it in the shadows. Melody's smart and sexy, but is hiding her own dark secrets. When she asks Rick for help, the former cop in him says no, but the rest of him says yes. But doing the right thing isn't easy in a town where you'll always be the wrong man.

After Melody is arrested for murder, Rick, haunted by his failure to protect his dead wife, takes up her cause as his own. He then uncovers evidence that can either exonerate or doom Melody. With the police now targeting him for the murder and desperate people trying to kill him to keep their secrets hidden, Rick must save himself and challenge his feelings for a woman whose past is darker than his own.

Night Tremors

The 2nd Rick Cahill crime novel

Nightmares of the man he killed two years ago still chase Rick Cahill through his sleep. The memory of his murdered wife haunts him during waking hours. His private investigative work, secretly photographing adulterers, paid for his new house but stains his soul.

When an old nemesis asks for his help to free a man from prison, a man he thinks is wrongly convicted of murder, Rick grabs at the chance to turn his life around. His investigation takes him from the wealthy enclave of La Jolla to the dark underbelly of San Diego. His quest fractures his friendship with his mentor, endangers his steady job, and draws the ire of the Police Chief who had tried to put Rick behind bars forever. With the police on one side of the law and a vicious biker gang on the other, all trying to stop him from freeing the man in prison, Rick risks his life to uncover the truth that only the real killer knows about what happened one bloody night eight years earlier.

Praise

"Coyle doesn't disappoint in this sophomore entry after the Anthony Award-winning Yesterday's Echoes. In this tale we find all the elements that garnered the first book such high praise: complex characters, snappy dialog, a fast-paced plot, and a clever blending of crime noir tropes with today's culture. The gods seem to take delight in persecuting Rick Cahill, but readers will relish this fast-paced and complex whodunit."

   —Library Journal

"In Anthony Award-winner Coyle's extremely dark sequel to 2013's Yesterday's Echo, Rich Cahill, a La Jolla, Calif., PI stuck doing such lowly jobs as photographing adulterous spouses, is drawn to the case of Randall Eddington. Imprisoned in San Quentin eight years earlier, at age 18, for the brutal murder of his parents and sister, Randall may get a new trial if fresh evidence can be verified. The investigation is complicated by the involvement of a vicious biker gang, the ethically compromised cops who may have known that Randall was framed, and Cahill's own obsessive need to study every piece of the puzzle. Most PIs are hypercompetent and tough, but Cahill is fallible and painfully vulnerable—he keeps on trying to do the right thing. Readers should be prepared for a morally ambiguous ending to this sobering crime novel."

   —Publishers Weekly

"Night Tremors is Matt Coyle's second superb thriller featuring the flawed, but likable, PI Rick Cahill. Coyle keeps the plot progressing at a solid pace with tight prose and a sufficient amount of unforeseen twists and turns to sustain readers' interest to the shocking conclusion. Fans of PI thrillers will find Night Tremors an excellent reading experience—and eagerly anticipating the next Rick Cahill novel."

   —Fresh Fiction

"Rick Cahill is not a happy man. The former police officer turned PI still has nightmares about a man he killed two years ago, and he feels that he is responsible for the murder of his wife. Despairing of taking more cases involving the tracking of unfaithful spouses, he decides to help a lawyer he despises free an imprisoned man who may have been unjustly convicted of murder. The case puts him at odds with both the police department and a nasty biker gang and leads to a high-speed chase around San Diego. Solid hardboiled thriller fare."

   —Booklist

"Following an Anthony Award-winning debut isn't easy, but Matt Coyle slammed a homer. Hard, tough, humane—Night Tremors is outstanding!"

   —Robert Crais, MWA Grand Master, Anthony, Macavity, and Shamus Award-winning author of Suspect

"Matt Coyle has expanded his substantial talents in Night Tremors, his second mystery. Tight, smart and surprising, Night Tremors breathes fresh life into the PI tradition and entertains us all the way."

   —T. Jefferson Parker, three-time Edgar® Award-winner and author of Full Measure

"A terrific new take on classic noir! A PI with a conscience grapples with his past, then plots his own brand of justice in Matt Coyle's well-written, twisty and surprising page-turner."

   —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Truth be Told

"There are plenty of pretenders to Dashiell Hammett's legacy, but Matt Coyle nails it in his latest. Night Tremors is dark, devious and thoroughly disarming, breathing new life into the hard-boiled PI genre."

   —Hilary Davidson, Anthony Award-winning author of Blood Always Tells