The Big Both Ways »

John Straley is a criminal investigator for the state of Alaska and lives in Sitka with his son and wife, a marine biologist who studies whales. He is the Shamus Award-winning author of The Woman Who Married a Bear, The Curious Eat Themselves, and The Music of What Happens.

A gripping period crime story, The Big Both Ways incorporates actual events and real places. In his much-anticipated new novel, Straley has crafted a completely original thriller that pays homage to Raymond Chandlers gritty detective stories and John Dos Passoss evocative U.S.A. trilogy. Readers will find The Big Both Ways filled with complex characters, passion, greed, fear, and grief, yet buoyed by an undercurrent of hope and humanity.

Publishers Weekly

In this gripping tale of survival, betrayal and murder set in the Pacific Northwest in 1935 from Straley (Cold Water Burning), Slip Wilson is just trying to find work, food and a little justice when he hooks up with a bottle-blonde, Ellie Hobbes, who drags him into her edgy, ragtag life. At the last minute, Ellie, a notorious "red" union organizer who faces mounting problems with antiunion forces, and her young niece hop aboard the same rickety boat Slip is escaping on that's traveling from Seattle to Juneau. The odd trio barely catches a breath as weather, hunger, a Seattle homicide detective and a revenge-seeking gang of thugs hound them all the way up the Inside Passage. Ellie isn't big on explanations, so Slip isn't sure until nearly the end of their journey if she's a heroine or a scoundrel. Straley's beautifully understated narrative, vivid sense of place and unapologetic, unadorned characters make this a riveting, unpredictable ride. (May)

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