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by Zane Lovitt
A literary detective story ingeniously told in ten cases. John Dorn is a classic gumshoe. His woman has left him, he lives in his office, and he drinks too much. His one friend, a lawyer named Demetri, hands Dorn an infinite supply of hopeless cases and lost causes, to which Dorn, ever the champion of the underdog and the oppressed, is drawn to as a sledgehammer is to a kneecap."
A superlative work of hardboiled literary detective fiction, The Midnight Promise wonderfully evokes the underbelly of contemporary Melbourne, its battlers, its hard men, its victims, and its ill-fated heroes.
"Starred Review. Melbourne PI John Dorn declares, in the prologue of Australian author Lovitt's powerful hard-boiled debut, 'You don't make promises to do what I do.' He goes on to do just that over the course of 10 chapters, each involving a separate case." - Publishers Weekly
"Lovitt has a neat way with a yarn: in 'An Ordinary Job', for instance, the second story in the book, he lulls you into thinking you've got his - or his characters' - number, then after the foreseeable twist, he gives you something you didn't expect...By the last story, [Dorn] has landed himself in a right mess, which is where Lovitt leaves him. But let's hope it's not for too long." - The Sydney Morning Herald
"Whatever twists and turns, and leaps and bounds John Dorn takes, however, the book is deliciously readable and extremely well done." - austcrimefiction.com
"So, would I recommend this book? Yes, to non-crime readers, like me, who look for character and good writing, and to crime readers who, I'm presuming, like intriguing cases with a detective who keeps you guessing. If I were a crime reader, I'd be saying I hope this isn't the last we see of John Dorn, or of Zane Lovitt. In fact, I'll say it anyhow …" - whisperinggums.com
This information about The Midnight Promise 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.
Zane Lovitt's stories have been featured in Scribe's New Australian Stories 2 and in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. "Leaving the Fountainhead" won the SD Harvey Short Story Award at the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime fiction. He lives in Melbourne.
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