By B.J. Smith

The Detective Edward "Red" Shaw novels offer what's been called "a fascinating window into an otherwise forgotten corner of the American Midwest. Des Moines in this series is neither the boring insurance town it used to be, nor just the hipster paradise it's become, but a gritty frontier town where no one is who or what they seem." Another reviewer described Shaw, the protagonist created by a former Iowa daily newspaper reporter, as "a neat balance between the hard-boiled detectives of past noir thrillers (think Sam Spade) and the somewhat less cynical, less worldly, but no less intelligent and capable detectives of more modern fiction."