The Big Cinch - Paperback

by Kathy L. Brown (Author)

The Big Cinch embeds readers in a magic-laced St. Louis. Sean Joye is a disillusioned young veteran of 1922's Irish Civil War. Ignoring his magical insights since childhood, Sean hopes to escape fae attention, forget his assassin past, and make a clean new life in St. Louis but finds himself embroiled in the activities of an elite, magic-dabbling family. The youngest daughter, Lillian, is eager to share her secrets-as well as her bedroom-with Sean, but he falls hard for Lillian's fiancé, a WWI flying ace with a few secrets of his own. Soon he is on the run, a suspect in his lover's bludgeoning and a tycoon's murder. Can Sean tap the supernatural abilities he's long rejected in time to protect the innocent and save his own skin?

Praise for The Big Cinch
Think of The Big Cinch as the spooky love child of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and Stephen King's The Shining. Hammett gave us Sam Spade, a cynical investigator in the treacherous world of the 1920s San Francisco. Kathy L. Brown's cynical investigator is Sean Joye, an ex-IRA soldier in the treacherous world of the 1920s St. Louis. But her detective has to deal with ghosts as well. Enjoy this clever melding of a noir mystery an dark fantasy!
- Michael A. Kahn, award-winning author of the Rachel Gold mystery series

What a marvel Brown has created in Sean Joye, an IRA soldier-turned-River City-henchman with the uncanny ability to endear himself to just about anyone-man or woman, rich or poor, criminal or saintly, earthly or immaterial. There's nary a dull moment in his puckish, streetwise, surprisingly enlightened company.
- Christopher Clancy, author of We Take Care of Our Own

Sean Joye is a charmer guaranteed to seduce the reader of Kathy L. Brown's The Big Cinch. He is determined to find the truth, no matter how many hearts and laws he has to break along the way. He takes the reader into the very heart of Prohibition Era St. Louis, exposing scandals while riling spirits. You will love traveling along with this flirtatious sleuth as he pieces together all of the clues, proving that the bad boys really are more fun.
- Charis Emanon, author of 51 Ways To End Your World

The fae-touched IRA veteran-turned-St. Louis investigator Sean Joye returns with a vengeance in The Big Cinch, a daunting adventure that sees the St. Louis of old come to vivid life in Kathy L. Brown's capable hands. Sean's search for the missing baby girl of a wealthy St. Louis debutante leads him into an increasingly dangerous web of supernatural intrigue that touches on not only local history but the restrictive social mores of the early 20th century. A fascinating tale!
- Daniel Waugh, author of Gangs of St. Louis

With unencumbered prose and the sure-footed pace of a gumshoe hot on the case, Kathy L. Brown manages to blend a whiskey-dripping pair of fantastical worlds in her grainy new novel, The Big Cinch. Cinch follows Sean Joye, as he stalks the haunted streets of post-Great War St. Louis, a whole damn city built on top of an Ancient Indian Burial Ground. Joye's a Private Dick in the classic sense, but driven by a sensibility appropriate to the modern age. Part Chinatown, part Carnival Row, The Big Cinch delivers a pulpy dive entirely unique unto itself.
- Paul d. Miller, author of Albrecht Drue, ghostpuncher and Albrecht Drue, Paranormal Dick.

Old money. A missing child. Forbidden Love. Murder. The sights and sounds of 1920s St. Louis shines in this paranormal
whodunit by Kathy L. Brown. Crisp writing and snappy dialogue are reminiscent of Cohen brothers' "Miller's Crossing" as Brown skillfully brings to life complex characters that leap off the pages. A late-night page turner, you won't be able to put this supernatural mystery down until the heart-stopping end.
- Stephen Paul Sayers, author of A Taker of Morrows