To his chagrin, Alaskan PI Cecil Younger learns his teenage daughter has launched her own detective agency. But when her first case goes awry, she's going to need some help from an unlikely source: her father, who's currently locked up in prison.
The verdict from the three-judge panel is in. Cecil Younger, bumbling criminal defense investigator and totally embarrassing father, has been sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for his involvement in . . . well, a number of things, ranging from destruction of private property to killing a guy. But compared to the original twenty-five-year sentence, it's not so bad. His success with getting his sentence reduced has attracted the attention of his fellow inmates, and one man, "Fourth Street," reaches out for advice for his upcoming parole hearing in exchange for protection and companionship.
When he isn't reading Adrienne Rich or James Baldwin with Fourth Street, Cecil spends his time filling up large yellow legal pads. He writes, mostly, about his teenage daughter, Blossom, who is on a Nancy Drew–like quest to help her friend, George, discover the truth about her biological parents, which turns out to be complicated. Shortly after submitting a mail-in genetics test, George learns she is the infamous "Baby Jane Doe" who was kidnapped from her Native mother shortly after she was born. A media and legal circus quickly ensues, and George's reunion with her birth family isn't the heartwarming story the journalists hoped it would be. There is an even darker secret about the baby-snatching case, a secret threatens to destroy not just George's family-but Cecil's as well. Praise for the Cecil Younger investigations
"Straley knows how to wrap deadly violence in a bubble of black humor that suits the novel's beautiful but harsh setting, where whales open their maws to dine on oceans of salmon fry and men kill one another while ravens fly overhead, screaming with laughter."
-The New York Times
"Mr. Straley's prose continues to dazzle . . . His word-pictures have a hallucinatory brilliance appropriate . . . to the eerie beauty of the Alaskan landscape."
-The Wall Street Journal
"Inimitable."
-The Seattle Times
"A fascinating Alaskan setting, great characters, a highly unusual plot and remarkably good writing. It's a winner."
-Tony Hillerman, New York Times bestselling author of the Leaphorn and Chee novels
"John Straley is an Alaskan treasure. Baby's First Felony is a page-turning, darkly hilarious murder mystery turned upside down. With the help of a crazy cast of characters, investigator Cecil Younger is taking on the criminal underbelly of an Alaska seaside town, even as he faces the equally terrifying trials of parenting a teenager. As always, Straley has brought his unflinching eye, compassionate heart and lyrical voice to the story. Northern noir at its best."
-Eowyn Ivey, Pulitzer finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Snow Child
"The voice is so original that is can only belong to John Straley . . . Definitely up there with the great ones."
-Chicago Tribune
"Thoroughly enjoyable and slightly wacko . . . Ironic humor reminiscent of the Coen brothers and violence worthy of Quentin Tarantino."
-The Boston Globe
"Straley is one of the best prose stylists to emerge from the genre in a long time, and his evocation of the chilly, dangerous landscape and climate effectively sets a foreboding tone."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Straley's done the impossible. He's reinvented the private eye novel."
-The Denver Post John Straley was born in Redwood City, California. He received a BA in English from the University of Washington, but settled in Sitka, Alaska, with his wife, Jan, a prominent whale biologist. John worked for thirty years as a criminal defense investigator, and many of the characters in
