More character development as Snow takes on a shady outfit creating off-the-map hideaways for international criminals. But god knows, they never should have tried to create one in Detroit's Mexicantown--that is Snow's domain, and he isn't going to stand for it! Perhaps the most implausible book in the series so far, but highly enjoyable. ( )

Stephen Mack Jones takes this series to new heights! Great characters, dialog, plot, & setting. This is book 3 and I can't wait for book 4! ( )

Dead of Winter: A Novel by Stephen Mack Jones reflects the way things are changing in local neighborhoods all across the United States. Places that were ignored for years and residents were left to fend for themselves are now the cool place to be and rehabbers and others are snapping up properties. Some homes are rehabbed and put back on the market for double or more the purchase price. In other cases, long time neighborhood fixtures are purchased, bulldozed, and replace with whatever is trendy at the moment.

That is apparently the fate in mind of some for Authentico foods owned by Mr. Ochoa in Mexicantown. What started as a mom-and-pop small store front grew over the decades into a major supply house for the Midwest that catered to restaurants and more. The recipes for tortillas, salsas, and queso came from Ochoa family who never forgot they were part of the neighborhood. In good times and very bad times, Authentico Foods and the Ochoa family took care of their neighbors. Mr. Snow's mom worked for him and rose up the ranks at the company. So, when Mr. Ochoa wants a meeting with August Snow, his mom passes the word, and the former cop goes to the meeting.

Mr. Ochoa is dying thanks to cancer and is trying to make things right for folks after he passes. He wants Snow to buy the company. While Snow could do so because of the settlement with the city of Detroit that paid him millions, he does not know a thing about running such a company. He does not want to buy the company, but as the meeting continues it becomes clear that Mr. Ochoa is in a squeeze and not just because of the cancer.

Some sort of real estate speculator who only goes by “Mr. Sloan” is pushing hard for him to sell. Allegedly he is working on behalf of the wealthy Vic Bronson who made his fortune in adjustable-rate mortgages and balloon payments when the housing market was crazy two decades ago. Apparently, the plan is fire everyone, demolish the place, and build some sort of ethnic mall with all the culturally appropriated trappings, put some high-end apartments on the floor above the shops, and slap a cheesy name on the place. All Mr. Ochoa wants is to protect what he has built and keep his workers employed so they have jobs after he dies. To make that happen, he is willing to sell the company for a lot less money.

Snow is still very reluctant to get involved until he learns that as part of the initial negotiating offer by Sloan, a piece of blackmail was given to the family. The loan shark and a few other things, Marcus “Duke” Ducane, is involved. Many decades ago, Mr. Ochoa had business dealings with him. The involvement of Duke Ducane makes things very personal as Snow put an end to his criminal enterprise as a young Detroit cop. Duke did five years at a minimum-security prison, got out, and now runs a high-end recording studio in a Detroit Suburb. The business is supposedly legit. In Snow’s mind, it is probably more likely to be crooked and better hidden thanks to Duke Ducane’s time inside with his companions from the banking and investment world.

A visit by Snow to Duke Ducane as well as some other activities soon results in a counter response and things quickly escalate in Dead of Winter: A Novel by Stephen Mack Jones.

Social commentary has always been part of the fabric of the series. Some of the fact-based societal observations in this fast-moving mystery read are sure to tick off some folks. They may even stop some folks from reading the book. That would be a shame as, if they do, they will miss a very enjoyable and intense read that features a complicated mystery and more. While there are references to earlier events in the preceding books, those references are fairly brief in nature and background, thus making this book one could easily read if new to the series.

Dead of Winter: A Novel, as are the preceding books, highly recommended.

Dead of Winter
Stephen Mack Jones
SoHo Press
https://sohopress.com/books/dead-of-winter/
ASIN: B089S6NPCY
May 2021
eBook (also available in print and audio formats)
302 Pages

While I was on hold for the print copy, the eBook version became available at my local library system. Once again, Scott made the magic happen and got technology to work for this reader.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021 ( )

The first line of “Dead of Winter” says it all. “My house is quietly becoming Frankenstein’s monster.”
August Octavio Snow is a true Detroit native; he loves Motown music and is obsessed with cars, big US made muscle cars. (He strongly objects to making an exit in what? A Prius?) He is a marine, once and always, having been in Afghanistan, a.k.a., “the sand,” and at least for a minute, was a cop. He won a $12 million wrongful dismissal suit against the Detroit Police Department, but struggles with the dark pressures of life.
The story unfolds in Snow’s first-person narrative filled with both philosophy and humor. (He readily answers the doorbell, confident that he will not be mugged, beaten or eaten, since thieves, killers and zombies rarely use the doorbell.) Conversations reflect both the troubling and the hilariously inappropriate things that people say to each other. The vocabulary and cadence of the narrative set the tone of the story more than the events themselves; the strength of the story is in the telling.
Snow and his friends flip houses in the southwest Detroit neighborhood of Mexicantown. Rampant development is threatening local businesses as the neighborhood evolves into a hipster, urban-chic place to be. Mr. Ochoa, the owner of local landmark Authentico Foods, has already had a big cash offer. He wants Snow to buy everything both to keep it out of the hands of a big developer, and to allow him a life somewhere that is not a “frozen wasteland three-quarters of the year.” Of course nothing is simple, and what evolves is a detailed and difficult journey. Snow is accustomed to guns, knives, and revenge, however problematic personal issues must be resolved, and the past is waiting for revenge.
“Remind me again who the good guys are and who the bad guys are?”
Snow is on a long and violent journey, but he shows personal growth, changes his attitude, and makes a commitment to himself and others.
I received a review copy of “Dead of Winter” from Stephen Mack Jones and Soho Crime. “Dead of Winter” is book three in the “August Snow” series, but it is not necessary to have read the previous books. Everything a new reader needs to know is included in this narrative. However, once finished, new readers will certainly want to go back to read the two previous books. ( )

August Snow has just about reached the limits of his project to rehabilitate his Detroit neighborhood now that investors are competing for properties to flip. On top of that, someone wants to take over the large site of a thriving business in Mexicantown, built up over the decades by a man who needs to settle his affairs. There's something very fishy about the would-be buyers, hid. den behind a shell company. August Snow doesn't want to rescue the business by buying it, but he also doesn't want it to fall into the hands of developers with ideas of gentrification that would change the nature of the vibrant working-class Detroit neighborhood and put a lot of residents out of work. When his best friend and godfather is attacked, he has no choice but to roll up his sleeves and put up his dukes.

Things I love about this series: the voice of the protagonist, both wise and wise-cracking. The setting and its colorful residents. The fact that it's crime fiction told from the perspective of a Black and Mexican man who can analyze the unequal power relationships in a racist society with a light touch, when so much of the genre is some flavor of copaganda. The food! The descriptions of meals always make me ravenous.

What I don't love: the plotting and action scenes that depend on over-the-top masculine violence. That's okay, anyone who enjoys action films, especially ones with superheros, explosions, choreographed fights and women who are as badass as men in a larger-than-life way will probably love the whole package. It's just not my thing, but what happens in between the action scenes is.