Season's Revenge: Standard Print (Steve Martinez Mysteries) Paperback – September 9, 2016

Great characters, great location, great story, great ending.Oh, great author.Thanks for the great read.I will read all of your works.

Set in a small fictional town called Porcupine City on the southern shore of Lake Superior (UP, Michigan), this is the first of five stories in the Steve Martinez series. Steve is a Lakota Sioux Indian who was adopted as an infant and raised by white parents. He grew up on the East Coast, attended Cornell, joined the army, and then decided to become a policeman. He wanted a place different from where he grew up and the Porcupine County sheriff’s department was hiring, so he joined their force. The story begins when a wealthy local bigshot, Paul Passoja, is found dead in his tent, mauled to death by a bear. The death is decided to be accidental, and the case is closed. But Steve can't help wondering: Paul was an excellent woodsman, and an expert on bears, so why would he be so stupid as to smear his breakfast on the front of his tent?For the most part, I enjoyed this story. It was well-written, well-plotted, and the first mystery I've ever read where the weapon used was a bear. There was one small part that bugged me, and it kind of soured the rest of the story for me. Steve stops at a local bar to pick up some beer for a trip to his cabin, and is confronted by a belligerent drunk. And of course this drunk has to get in his face with a lot of racist crap, ugly stuff that I don't doubt for a minute happens, but it seems to have been dropped into the story just to show how hard it is to be a Native American, or how tough and smart he can be in handling the situation. Just didn't seem to fit with the rest of the narrative (though there was one very small plot point connected to the encounter). Overall, a good mystery that I would recommend with slight reservations.

Really liked this story. The plot was a good one, the characters well developed and the writing was excellent. When I saw this book on Amazon, the cover was not very appealing but I have an interest in bears so I read the description and reviews. I purchased the kindle version and put it in my library but was not really excited or eager to read it. When I finally got around to it I was pleasantly surprised. It really is very good. I was particularly impressed by the writing and as a result I will read more of his books. I would rate this a 4.5 (I save 5 stars for very few books) if that option had been available.

Henry Kisor tells a great tale. It definitely helps to be from or know of the upper peninsula, because he obviously knows his way around and makes it interesting to read about the lake and the people. I will be reading every one in the series.

This is a wonderful beginning of a series. I look forward to reading the next one!

Great mystery series, read them all straight through.

I first encountered Henry Kisor when I read his terrific book on the California Zephyr, traveling as a deaf man (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37815095). For years he was the book editor for the Chicago Sun-Times, and I once invited him to come speak at my college to discuss the difficulties faced by the hearing-impaired. A delightful man. I had no idea he had written a series of mysteries and was very pleased to see how good they are. He has another book on learning to fly and make a cross-country flight as a hearing-impaired pilot. Guy has guts.Steve Martinez is a Lakota Sioux raised by white foster parents who grew up out east, went to Cornell, was an MP in the army, and then joined the Porcupine County sheriff’s department. (Kisor has a cabin in the UP so the scenery is familiar - he waxes familiarly on the differences between city and country people.) Porcupine County is in the UP (Upper Peninsula) where the seasons are simply “winter, winter, winter, and black flies.)The local political bigwig, Paul Passoja, is found mauled by a bear after he went camping in the deep woods. The autopsy revealed early stages of Alzheimer’s and the man had been depressed recently so all signs pointed to an accidental death. The bear that did it was caught so that seemed to end that. But something just doesn’t seem right to Martinez who had found bits of bacon grease on the man, an accomplished woodsman, who knew better than to have any food near him in the tent in bear country.Not a book for those who have to have a shooting, beating, or other violence on every page, this book develops the characters in a very nice way that has you liking them before you know it. Good mystery, lots of interesting information, and a nice romance.On a personal note, I’d like to point out that being a sheriff’s deputy in a large county such as we have in the Midwest or West is no small task. The area to be covered is immense and often there might be only two deputies to cover many square miles. The chief deputy of an Iowa county I know, remarked that at night, he was responsible for 2400 square miles (the county was roughly 60 miles by 40 miles.) Try hustling to an accident at the far end of the county during a blizzard.