Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Shotgun Lullaby by Steve Ulfelder

Shotgun Lullaby by Steve Ulfelder

Shotgun Lullaby

A Conway Sax Mystery

by Steve Ulfelder

  • Critics' Consensus (5):
  • Published:
  • May 2013, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Conway Sax is a man seeking redemption.  A man with a deeply checkered past currently paying for his sins by helping Gus Biletnikov stay sober. Wise-ass Gus, son of a wealthy investment banker, drives Conway nuts. But he also reminds him of his own estranged son, and so Conway finds himself deeply invested in his wellbeing.

When a brutal triple-murder takes place in Gus's halfway house, Conway suspects Gus was the intended victim, and resolves to find the killer in his usual full-tilt, no-holds-barred fashion. The list of suspects soon includes the longtime organized-crime warlord of Springfield, Massachusetts; Gus's own father, who's a bundle of insecurity despite his fortune; the father's second wife, a stunning beauty webbed in ugly motives; and a Houston con man who'll swipe your gold fillings but crack you up while he does so.  But the case is no laughing matter to Conway when somebody close to him is murdered. To find the killer and prevent yet more senseless death, he needs help from both an ambitious Brazilian-American state cop, and an unlikely criminal source. Along the way, Conway's personal responsibilities clash with his vow to help fellow alcoholics, forcing him to make his toughest decision yet in this unforgettable page-turner reminiscent of Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Outstanding… Ulfelder has constructed the persona of his hard-edged but sympathetic lead carefully enough to ensure a long series run." – Publishers Weekly

"Ulfelder hits hard and fast, sometimes below the belt, with his fantastic third Conway Sax novel. Sax is an original: flawed, self-aware and undisciplined. He leads the reader on a merry chase through a maze of suspects until he narrows it down to the real perpetrator." – RT BOOK Reviews

"As dark, soulful and violent as the title would suggest. There's a real lullaby and some real shotguns." - Kirkus

"Gritty, intense, completely original. Ulfelder nails the voice, nails the story, and pushes Conway Sax, his unforgettable main character, beyond his breaking point. Shotgun Lullaby is more than just a page-turner of a mystery - it's a masterful study of a good guy gone bad, and his heart-breaking struggle to be good again." - Hank Phillippi Ryan Agatha, Anthony & Macavity winning author of The Other Woman

"Steve Ulfelder is one of the most street-smart authors writing crime fiction today. Shotgun Lullaby is a thrill ride that hits the gas hard on page one and races all the way to a heart-pounding finish." – Paul Doiron, author of Bad Little Falls

"Shotgun Lullaby is exactly as tough, and exactly as full of heart, as the title suggests. Steve Ulfelder is a major talent." – Timothy Hallinan, author of The Fear Artist

This information about Shotgun Lullaby was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Steve Ulfelder

Steve Ulfelder, author of the Conway Sax mysteries, is an amateur race driver and co-owner of Flatout Motorsports, a Massachusetts company that builds race cars. He was a business and technology journalist for 20 years. His first novel, Purgatory Chasm, was an Edgar Award Finalist.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: James
    James
    by Percival Everett
    The Oscar-nominated film American Fiction (2023) and the Percival Everett novel it was based on, ...
  • Book Jacket
    But the Girl
    by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu
    Jessica Zhan Mei Yu's But the Girl begins with the real-life disappearance of Malaysia Airlines ...
  • Book Jacket: Patriot
    Patriot
    by Alexei Navalny
    On the 17th of January, 2024, colleagues of Alexei Navalny posted a message to his Instagram account...
  • Book Jacket: Rental House
    Rental House
    by Weike Wang
    For many of us, vacations offer an escape from the everyday — a chance to explore new places, ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Who Said...

When all think alike, no one thinks very much

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.