Jack Hart
Created by Philip Finch
At forty-one, after a failed marriage and an eighteen-year career with the SFPD that ended with him being shot while on duty, JACK HART decides it's time for a new start.
Quiet, reserved, a tad cynical, with passion for little save his work, Jack wants something in the same field, but less likely to result in him getting shot again.
Good luck. In his new, and hopefully more peaceful gig as an insurance investigator, Jack's sent to the island of Negroes in the Philippines to look into a suspicious death claim and the murder of a colleague, but soon finds himself embroiled in local political unrest and generous doses of corruption, poverty and greed. Oh, and a little bit of romance. There's a good, terse Hammett-like feel to Jack's one recorded case, Sugarland (1991), but the bittersweet sorrow and heartache in the closing paragraphs is pure Chandler. Recommended.
Author finch has been a journalist, working for both the Washington Daily News and the San Francisco Examiner. He once lived in the Philippines.
NOVEL