Sweet Sunday - John Lawton

Turner Raines is not a typical New York private eye. He'd tell you so much himself, "I may not be the greatest gumshoe alive, but I'm a good listener." He is a has-beenamong the things he has been are a broken Civil Rights worker, a second-rate lawyer, and a tenth-rate journalist. But as a detective, he's found his niche. In the summer of 1969the hottest, sweatiest in history, the American summer in the American year in the American centurythe USA is about to land a man on the moon, and the Vietnam War is set to continue to rip the country to pieces, setting sons against fathers, fathers against sons. If your kid dodges the draft, hooks up with a hippie commune, makes a dash for Canada, Turner Raines is the man to find him. He won't drag him back, that's not the deal, but he will put you in touch with your loved one.

That turbulent May of 1969, as Norman Mailer runs for Mayor of New York, Raines leaves the city, chasing a draft-dodging punk all the way to Toronto. Nothing goes as planned. By the time Raines gets back to New York, his oldest friend is dead, the city has changed for ever, and with it, his life. Following the trail of his friend's death, he finds himself blasted back to the Texas of his childhood, confronted anew with the unresolved issues of his divided family, and blown into the path of certain people who know about secret goings-on in Vietnam, stories they may now be willing to tell. Lucky for Raines, he's a good listener.

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Praise for Sweet Sunday:

?Sweet Sunday is set in the tumultuous '60s. Lawton has done historical crime before, in his excellent (if slightly creepy) series about Inspector Troy, a WWII-era London police detective. This time we're in the U.S., where private eye Turner Raines has a specialty: tracking down draft dodgers. . . . Lawton convincingly nails the essence of those chaotic years."?Seattle Times

"A sprawling heartbreaker of a novel."?Literary Review

"A terrific job . . . excellent at catching the mood of that hot summer of 1969 when the Vietnam War had divided families."?Observer (London)

"More than enough verve and wit to ensure page-turning wakefulness."?Sunday Times (UK)

"Has all the virtues that have made his work so interesting: a powerfully drawn, conflicted central character, scene-setting of a rate order and (most of all) the kind of characterization that has invoked comparisons with such luminaries as Graham Greene."?Crime Time

"Atmospheric . . . absorbingly intelligent."?Financial Times

"The structure of the book is complex, with frequent changes of place and time, and the author handles it with skill . . . an absorbing read."?Sunday Telegraph

"Beautifully written, in an adventurous, episodic, elegiac style, entirely suitable to its subject matter, this is a marvelously entertaining read and a delightful piece of history viewed from the perspective of its victims."?Morning Star