Rolling Thunder: A John Ceepak Mystery »

Chris Grabenstein is the Anthony and Agatha Award-winning author of the critically acclaimed thrill reads Tilt A Whirl, Mad Mouse, Whack A Mole, Hell Hole, Mind Scrambler, and Rolling Thunder, plus the young adult chillers The Crossroads and The Hanging Hill. He lives in New York City.

"Full of unpredictable twists and turns. There's plenty of fizz in the chemistry between the two protagonists to keep the novel and the reader spinning."—Boston Globe

Publishers Weekly

At the start of Anthony Award-winner Grabenstein's enjoyable sixth John Ceepak mystery (after 2009's Mind Scrambler), the wife of Paddy O'Malley, an entrepreneur whose company has just built a roller coaster on the shore of the struggling resort town of Sea Haven, N.J., suffers a fatal heart attack on the new ride during the grand opening. As supercop Ceepak and his less obsessively straight-arrow partner, Danny Boyle, begin to doubt whether Mrs. O'Malley died of natural causes, the dismembered body of a party girl turns up in two suitcases. Since the most obvious suspect is too conveniently set up, the two cops must wade through a rancid swamp of local politics, sleazy sex, and family hatred for the truth. The corruption Ceepak sees drives him to be even more vigilantly upright. Vivid local color and sharply drawn characters—especially as dramatized in the contrast between the partners' attitudes—help make the pages fly. (May)