Mackenzie August (The First Collection)

By: Alan Lee

Narrated by: Scott Ellis

Length: 18 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

The gripping first bundle in the next great detective series.

Book one

Mack August, frustrated Los Angeles police detective, moves to a smaller city in Virginia to start over. Rather than join the force, he opens his own PI shop and hires out to local attorneys - until Sheriff Stackhouse comes calling, a stunner in designer khakis. Trouble has arrived, she explains, in the form of a gang general from the West Coast. He's galvanizing the drug trade using vicious strong-arm tactics, and the police can't identify him.

The sheriff begs Mackenzie to take a temporary assignment teaching at an inner-city school, to infiltrate the general's operative ranks inside, identify the crime boss, and bring him down. It's an impossible task; he'd be a bull in a china shop. He could lose his license, and people might get hurt. But if anyone can pull it off...it's the next great private detective, Mackenzie August.

Book two

Meet Veronica Summers.

She's a femme fatale in Jimmy Choo heels - a local attorney needing the services of a private investigator.

She's come to the right place. Mackenzie August is hired to sniff out a traitorous informant hiding in an underworld operation. It's an assignment he should turn down - if only someone other than Ronnie Summers had asked, maybe he could have....

Mackenzie is tossed into the deep end and finds himself mingling with the mafioso. Is his professional career worth risking for the sake of a cute girl with sordid secrets?

Book three

Meet Dr. Everett Owens - a respected anesthesiologist bringing his tale of woe to the door of professional sleuth Mackenzie August. Roanoke City's premiere residents are being burglarized, and Everett's been framed for the crime.

Mack is hired to investigate, unearthing dirty secrets buried by Roanoke's royalty. As the plot thickens, Mackenzie's carefully ordered world is struck by tragedy, and he comes ever closer to Veronica Summer's final secret....

©2020 Alan Lee Janney (P)2021 Alan Lee Janney

What a great find!

I am always up to date on Michael Connelly, John Sandford, Robert B. Parker's series and David Housewright and about a dozen others. Sometimes so up to date I run out of new material. I saw a blurb somewhere and took a chance on this guy. I am 2/3 of the way through the third book and I can't recommend Ala Lee highly enough. This guy is FUN. The stuff is formulaic but such a great and fun formula. Mackenzie August is like Spenser, Rushmore MacKenzie and Travis McGee rolled into one. It is not as dark and serious as Michael Connelly's stuff but that's fine. I hope we are going to get a lot more from this guy. Next time I'll add my "Prayer Review".

Wry, Witty…and Shrewdly Entertaining!

Mackenzie August is a snarky, stubbornly virtuous and fascinating protagonist - calling to mind Robert B. Parker’s Spenser - and narrator Scptt Ellis is the perfect conduit for bringing him to audio life. Accompanied by a rich cast of supporting characters who quickly become friends to the listener, August navigates a progression of dodgy, duplicitous and dangerous characters in Roanoke, Virginia, where sudden violence always seems to be lurking just below the surface…and the next thing he says might well make you laugh out loud. I can’t wait to hear book #4!

Mac and kicks!!!

Love these characters. And Manny is the best.
the English teacher bad ass combo. my hero

at last

the story was very enjoyable, but about 1/4 to many smart ass remarks from remarks made. truly appreciate a conscientious man who has a conscience and remains very male that women love.

Woke Stereotype Supporting Characters

I really, really wanted to like this book and actually could have liked this BUT the author (or perhaps woke jr. editors) are intent on having evil white racists sprinkled throughout the book and thereby perpetuate the mainstream media narrative of how all non-NPR listening white people are racist. And that ruined the book for me (stopped mid-way thru book 1). Although I’ve grown to expect this nonsense in current authors, this one was just too much for my taste. Particularly when I looking to read as an escape from this upside world of insane moral relativism and virtue signaling. It’s these subtle approaches which are the most dangerous. If the villain of a book is an ex-con who is an Aryan brotherhood leader for example, then readers can chalk it up to the very small number of people who are actual white racists. However, this book’s continued little droppings of white racists in the background is the exact method by an author which (in aggregate with other liberal authors and media) brainwash younger generations untrained and uninterested in critical thinking. Given today’s censorship model, I doubt this review will even be posted but at least I’ve attempted to forewarn like minds.

Tried to, but did not enjoy

I almost finished this book, because I don’t give up easily. Unfortunately I kept getting more and more disgusted with the trite, predictable storyline and the incredibly misogynistic, patronizing, narcissistic, machist, unrealistic (except for the underlying racist Episcopalian republican white supremacist views that ring very true) protagonist.

I hated this book.