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Danny Logan Mystery #6
The Rain City Hustle
Wedding bells are about to ring for Seattle private investigators Danny Logan and Toni Blair. The date is four weeks out and this time there will be no more delays, no more postponements, no more excuses. Nothing will stop them. But then . . . . .
Danny bumps into an old army buddy at Starbucks one morning. Her father’s prize French Impressionist painting has been stolen off the living room wall of his Bellevue condo by her conniving boyfriend, who had the bright idea to use it as collateral for a business loan. Trouble is, the lender he chose is a notorious loan shark who knows all about how valuable the painting is and he doesn’t want to give it back. Logan PI is her last chance to recover the painting before it’s gone for good.
In an unlikely pairing, the Logan PI team joins forces with Henry Parker – America’s most famous practitioner of the “big con” in a rollicking, off-the-wall tale that will remind you of The Sting. From the country club to the race track to the tech centers of Seattle, in order to pull it off, they’ll have to “move fast and stay one step ahead”.
Danny bumps into an old army buddy at Starbucks one morning. Her father’s prize French Impressionist painting has been stolen off the living room wall of his Bellevue condo by her conniving boyfriend, who had the bright idea to use it as collateral for a business loan. Trouble is, the lender he chose is a notorious loan shark who knows all about how valuable the painting is and he doesn’t want to give it back. Logan PI is her last chance to recover the painting before it’s gone for good.
In an unlikely pairing, the Logan PI team joins forces with Henry Parker – America’s most famous practitioner of the “big con” in a rollicking, off-the-wall tale that will remind you of The Sting. From the country club to the race track to the tech centers of Seattle, in order to pull it off, they’ll have to “move fast and stay one step ahead”.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 15, 2022
165 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
M.D. Grayson
8 books41 followersM.D. Grayson is the author of the Danny Logan mystery series. He grew up in Las Vegas but now he lives on an island near Seattle with his wife Michelle and their three German shepherds.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Mr. Grayson worked in the construction industry, as an accountant for six l-o-n-g weeks (square peg—round hole), and as a piano player on the Las Vegas strip. When he's not writing, he loves zooming about on two wheels— bicycles and motorcycles alike. In addition, he's a pilot, a boater, and an accomplished musician who's always ready for a jam session!
Before becoming a full-time writer, Mr. Grayson worked in the construction industry, as an accountant for six l-o-n-g weeks (square peg—round hole), and as a piano player on the Las Vegas strip. When he's not writing, he loves zooming about on two wheels— bicycles and motorcycles alike. In addition, he's a pilot, a boater, and an accomplished musician who's always ready for a jam session!
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 20, 2022
Rain City Hustle
This is better than a three-star book, but the limits of the rating system make it either four stars, which it isn’t or three which isn’t good enough. Call it a three and a half extra-officially.
The characters are fully developed and vibrant for the most part, the villains are mostly cardboard, but the rest are fine.
Aside from some fairly eccentric understanding of how loan sharks work the setup works for this sort of story.
Husband and wife or any male-female team after Nick and Nora Charles is doomed to fail, not because they aren’t drawn well enough but simply because most writers give the bulk of the work to one character over the other. This imbalance makes for a sluggish story. And while not terribly objectionable, all the wedding talk does nothing to move the plot forward.
The real flaw is in the plot. The MacGuffin is telegraphed and this makes pulling off a caper very difficult. In fact a caper story is hard to win with because the very nature of a caper is in the visuals and the written word makes bringing the necessary visuals difficult if not impossible.
The characters used in the Macguffin are nicely developed and frankly more interesting than the leads. The switching between the actual names and the names used in the caper makes for some tricky reading. Not an impossible situation but it does slow the flow of the story and I find anything which makes the reader say, “Huh?’ is not good for the structure.
My background in law enforcement makes the actions of the villains woefully false, which in turn makes the leads have to work much harder to seem virtuous.
More attention to the mechanics of the setup and less attention to all of the wedding plans would go a long way to making this four stars.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
This is better than a three-star book, but the limits of the rating system make it either four stars, which it isn’t or three which isn’t good enough. Call it a three and a half extra-officially.
The characters are fully developed and vibrant for the most part, the villains are mostly cardboard, but the rest are fine.
Aside from some fairly eccentric understanding of how loan sharks work the setup works for this sort of story.
Husband and wife or any male-female team after Nick and Nora Charles is doomed to fail, not because they aren’t drawn well enough but simply because most writers give the bulk of the work to one character over the other. This imbalance makes for a sluggish story. And while not terribly objectionable, all the wedding talk does nothing to move the plot forward.
The real flaw is in the plot. The MacGuffin is telegraphed and this makes pulling off a caper very difficult. In fact a caper story is hard to win with because the very nature of a caper is in the visuals and the written word makes bringing the necessary visuals difficult if not impossible.
The characters used in the Macguffin are nicely developed and frankly more interesting than the leads. The switching between the actual names and the names used in the caper makes for some tricky reading. Not an impossible situation but it does slow the flow of the story and I find anything which makes the reader say, “Huh?’ is not good for the structure.
My background in law enforcement makes the actions of the villains woefully false, which in turn makes the leads have to work much harder to seem virtuous.
More attention to the mechanics of the setup and less attention to all of the wedding plans would go a long way to making this four stars.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
April 25, 2023
Wow! It’s been over 8 years since I read the previous book in this series.
This entry in the series is as good as earlier ones but also not as good.
The story itself (Danny’s friend asks him to retrieve a valuable painting owned by her father handed over to loan sharks as collateral; he and other friends set up a con to get it back.) was a good one.
It fell short because there was no tension. Hinted-at danger never materialized. There were quite a few places where things could have gone wrong for Danny and his friends – the loan shark’s muscle could seriously threaten them, the PI hired by the loan shark could figure out the scam and blow the whistle, the loan shark could double-cross the team – but none of that never happened. The result is a story that feels flat.
And this is sad because Grayson in his acknowledgements, cites his love of the movie The Sting and desire to pay homage to it as motivation for this story.
Danny and Toni’s wedding – hinted at often throughout the story – never happened on the page. The only way the reader knows it took place is they discuss returning from their honeymoon toward the end of the book. I believe it was Chandler who said something to the effect of if you have a character pull a gun from a drawer later in the book, you have to tell the reader there’s a gun in the drawer earlier in the book. I think the opposite should also be true: If your characters talk about a wedding (in this case) early in the book, you should give the reader that wedding later in the book.
Grayson’s switching between his characters’ ‘real’ names and ‘scam’ names throughout the story without flagging the scam names somehow made it hard to identify who was who.
All that cost my rating 1 star.
Still, I’ll read the next Danny Logan novel when it comes out. I just hope I don’t have to wait 8 years for it.
This entry in the series is as good as earlier ones but also not as good.
The story itself (Danny’s friend asks him to retrieve a valuable painting owned by her father handed over to loan sharks as collateral; he and other friends set up a con to get it back.) was a good one.
It fell short because there was no tension. Hinted-at danger never materialized. There were quite a few places where things could have gone wrong for Danny and his friends – the loan shark’s muscle could seriously threaten them, the PI hired by the loan shark could figure out the scam and blow the whistle, the loan shark could double-cross the team – but none of that never happened. The result is a story that feels flat.
And this is sad because Grayson in his acknowledgements, cites his love of the movie The Sting and desire to pay homage to it as motivation for this story.
Danny and Toni’s wedding – hinted at often throughout the story – never happened on the page. The only way the reader knows it took place is they discuss returning from their honeymoon toward the end of the book. I believe it was Chandler who said something to the effect of if you have a character pull a gun from a drawer later in the book, you have to tell the reader there’s a gun in the drawer earlier in the book. I think the opposite should also be true: If your characters talk about a wedding (in this case) early in the book, you should give the reader that wedding later in the book.
Grayson’s switching between his characters’ ‘real’ names and ‘scam’ names throughout the story without flagging the scam names somehow made it hard to identify who was who.
All that cost my rating 1 star.
Still, I’ll read the next Danny Logan novel when it comes out. I just hope I don’t have to wait 8 years for it.
September 14, 2022
I received an ARC of this book for an honest review.
I’ve not read any of the previous books in this series, but I don’t think it really matters as this book can be read as a stand alone.
Danny and Toni are PIs in rainy Seattle. Danny’s friend from his army days Kate, has asked them to help re-acquire a very valuable painting which is owned by her father, but has been used by her partner as collateral for a loan with a loan shark.
The loan shark is as crooked as the day is long and refuses to return the painting despite the offer of repayment (even though Kate doesn’t actually have the money).
Danny’s former associate PI knows a crook who is an expert of “the long con” as in the film “the Sting” and they hatch a plot to convince the loan shark to part with the painting.
I wish I liked this book more. I did like the characters and I did find the book mildly amusing, however I just didn’t believe it.
For the story to work you have to be convinced that the con would work, but I’m afraid I just didn’t believe it. It all went too smoothly and easily. I just didn’t find it convincing.
There was a nice little twist at the end which I did like.
I’ve not read any of the previous books in this series, but I don’t think it really matters as this book can be read as a stand alone.
Danny and Toni are PIs in rainy Seattle. Danny’s friend from his army days Kate, has asked them to help re-acquire a very valuable painting which is owned by her father, but has been used by her partner as collateral for a loan with a loan shark.
The loan shark is as crooked as the day is long and refuses to return the painting despite the offer of repayment (even though Kate doesn’t actually have the money).
Danny’s former associate PI knows a crook who is an expert of “the long con” as in the film “the Sting” and they hatch a plot to convince the loan shark to part with the painting.
I wish I liked this book more. I did like the characters and I did find the book mildly amusing, however I just didn’t believe it.
For the story to work you have to be convinced that the con would work, but I’m afraid I just didn’t believe it. It all went too smoothly and easily. I just didn’t find it convincing.
There was a nice little twist at the end which I did like.
December 7, 2022
A couple who own a private investigation business in Seattle are asked by a friend to recover a stolen painting that's being held by the son of a loan shark. They set up an elaborate sting to recover the painting and that's the subject of this book. While the book held my interest, I thought the PIs were a bit too careless in how they approached this investigation. Thus, it seemed a bit unrealistic. But, nonetheless it was fairly entertaining.
Thank you NetGalley and Cedar Coast Press for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
Thank you NetGalley and Cedar Coast Press for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
May 27, 2023
Good book, but there are a couple of loose ends. Like, what happened to the guy who went in to the restroom, did he blow up with the building? And why was Farley Palmer, supposedly a former good guy, working for the bad guys in the first place? He figured out the footprint, but never called Danny on it. Also, seems like the reward barely made up for the humongous expense in setting up the whole thing, but maybe I'm missing something here. Still, it was a good read.
January 19, 2024
third
person narrative actually had me disappointed since all five previous novels in the series were told by 'the hero', Danny .. the other novels had a layer of detail only achieved in that format .. I will say, though, that the surprises throughout the story made up for the difference and I certainly recommend reading this last novel in the saga of Logan Private Investigations ...
person narrative actually had me disappointed since all five previous novels in the series were told by 'the hero', Danny .. the other novels had a layer of detail only achieved in that format .. I will say, though, that the surprises throughout the story made up for the difference and I certainly recommend reading this last novel in the saga of Logan Private Investigations ...
February 8, 2023
It's been awhile!
I love this series but this one didn't capture my attention. The characters (other than Danny and his team) weren't my favorite, nor the plot. It started out very exciting with humor thrown in but lost me soon after. I will be looking for the next one though.
I love this series but this one didn't capture my attention. The characters (other than Danny and his team) weren't my favorite, nor the plot. It started out very exciting with humor thrown in but lost me soon after. I will be looking for the next one though.
May 23, 2023
A quite engrossing plot with a cast of thousands, well that's what it seemed like. Frank Thorne and his son Billy get what's coming to them and everyone else got something out of it but if Farley Palmer took the bags with the cash in where did their big payout come from ? The painting went back where it belonged and Danni and Toni got to the church on time so all's well that ends well.
May 28, 2023
A good and fun read
Not my type of book, but very entertaining and I had to finish it! I admit, sometimes I had trouble following who was doing what, but it worked out in the end. What I want to know is what happened to Ernie?
Not my type of book, but very entertaining and I had to finish it! I admit, sometimes I had trouble following who was doing what, but it worked out in the end. What I want to know is what happened to Ernie?
August 16, 2025
- If a reader has seen the movie, “The Sting” (Paul Newman, Robert Redford) then this story is plucked right out of that script. Sure there’s a different venue but the similarity is undeniable and takes away the originality of this book. On the plus side, the characters and dialogue are well done.
June 1, 2023
A Fun Read
Love the Logan PI books. Always well written and full of action. They always contain funny material and moments that keep one reading to the end.
Love the Logan PI books. Always well written and full of action. They always contain funny material and moments that keep one reading to the end.
July 9, 2023
Grifters galore! And so much fun!
July 9, 2025
Great read, but IMO the ending sucked.
January 5, 2023
Another good read
Only 3 of 5 stars in this on mainly because it took me more time (over a month) to finish it, not like the others in the series. Maybe holidays but didn’t keep me reading engaged like the others previous books. The ending looks like another May be in the works. I’ll definitely read it also, however as I’m still a fan of Logan PI.
Only 3 of 5 stars in this on mainly because it took me more time (over a month) to finish it, not like the others in the series. Maybe holidays but didn’t keep me reading engaged like the others previous books. The ending looks like another May be in the works. I’ll definitely read it also, however as I’m still a fan of Logan PI.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews