Death and the Language of Happiness by John Straley

Death and the Language of Happiness by John Straley

In the Alaskan town of Sitka, the living is tough and the crimes are aplenty . . . and plenty personal.

When 97-year-old William Flynn is accused of killing his neighbor, Angela Ramirez, he turns to private investigator Cecil Younger with an odd--and, frankly, rather incriminating--request. He wants Cecil to track down a man he believes witnessed Ramirez's murder: her estranged husband, Simon Delaney. The only problem? Flynn doesn't just want Cecil to find Delaney. He wants him to kill the man. Cecil knows that kind of thing would be bad for business, but he takes the job, hoping he can both convince Flynn to call off the manhunt and discover what really happened to his neighbor. But the old man isn't making the job easy. He keeps confusing two different crimes: Angela Ramirez's recent murder and an 80-year-old tragedy in which four American Legionnaires were killed during an Armistice Day Parade.

Cecil struggles to sort through the old man's befuddled memories and dives into the search for Delaney, which takes him on a journey through Alaska history and all over the Pacific Northwest, from the Aleutian Islands to Centralia, Washington.

John Straley and his small kid live in Sitka, Alaska, with his wife, a marine biologist who researches whales. The Lady Who Married a Bear, The Curious Eat Themselves, and The Music of What Happens won him the Shamus Prize. He's now working on The Angels Will Not Care, his next Cecil Younger novel.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780553096798
ISBN 10	0553096796
Title	Death and the Language of Happiness
Author	John Straley
Series	Cecil Younger Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Bantam
Year published	1997-03-31
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.