Cold Storage, Alaska (A Cold Storage Novel)

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About Cold Storage, Alaska

Review Praise for Cold Storage, AlaskaA Boston Globe Best Crime Book of 2014"Straley strikes the perfect balance of humor and pathos in this story about the McCahon brothers.”—New York Times Book Review"[Straley] writes crime novels populated by perpetrators whose hearts are filled with more poetry than evil."—The Wall Street Journal"Straley isn’t prolific, but when he does publish a book it’s a gem... The crime aspect of 'Cold Storage, Alaska' is pretty casual. Straley’s mostly interested in his characters and how they interact on a personal level... It’s always a pleasure to read Straley’s vivid studies of these folks — the slightly cracked, rugged and very funny characters of the Far North."—The Seattle Times“Thoroughly enjoyable and slightly wacko... Dashes of magical realism mixed with ironic humor reminiscent of the Coen brothers and violence worthy of Quentin Tarantino make this second series novel a winner. Compelling characters and deft treatment of themes like redemption and the power of community take it to a level beyond.”—The Boston Globe“Lesser writers look to their characters’ poor choices and attempts to rectify them, John Straley loves his characters for just those choices. Hölderlin wrote: 'Poetically man dwells on the earth.' Some of us wind up in limericks, some in heroic couplets. But damned near every one of us, sooner or later, ends up in one of Straley’s wise, wayward, wonderfully unhinged novels.”—James Sallis, author of Drive and the Lew Griffin mysteries“What a warm, engaging, profoundly human book this is: its skin crackling, its heart enormous and open. It's a mystery with judicious blasts of violence and dread, but it opens also onto the bigger mysteries—of community, of family, of place. The several lives that intertwine throughout the story reach moments of quiet grace that resonate stealthily but deeply.”—John Darnielle, lead singer of The Mountain Goats and author of Wolf in White Van"[Cold Storage, Alaska] is part crime story, part screwball comedy, peopled with characters you long to spend more time with."—Daily Mail (UK)"Surprisingly moving... Straley’s lean prose and snappy dialogue — not to mention the book’s few scenes of swift, hard-boiled violence — will likely remind many readers of Elmore Leonard’s classic crime novels."—Richmond Times-Dispatch“Kind, smart and deeply moving... ‘Cold Storage, Alaska’ is certainly a wild mystery in the vein of Elmore Leonard's ‘Get Shorty’ years or all of Carl Hiaasen, it is just as much an homage to small towns and the people who fill them. What elevates Straley above so much of the competition is how very much he cares about the people and places he writes about.” —Alaska Dispatch“John Straley’s Cold Storage, Alaska is a snapshot of the USA, with its faults and struggling possibilities. Comic, engrossing, exotic yet familiar, it’s precise to the place and its feel, keen on character and foible, full of lore and history, and rich in little off-to the-side sightings of trees, winds, waves, birds and mammals… Over the top good.”—Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Turtle Island“A story of a town with nothing much to offer but rain, salmon fishing, drink and gossip--but that's plenty for Straley to work with. Cold Storage may be "a town that gloried in [its] bad habits... clinging to the side of the mountains with no roads, no cars, and virtually no sense of the outer world," but in Straley's hands, it is rich in character, music, humor and compassion.”—Shelf Awareness, Starred Review"Straley, author of The Big Both Ways, has created a wonderfully evocative place in Cold Storage. His evocation of nature and human nature approaches the lyrical, and he seems guided by Faulkner’s dictum that the only thing truly worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." —Booklist, Starred Review “An in-depth look at small-town life... If you think winter in St. Louis is uncomfortable, try winter in ‘Cold Storage, Alaska.’”—St. Louis Pos