The Man Who Swore He’d Never Go Home Again

In this case from early in Stewart Hoag’s career, the newly successful writer revisits his hometown to investigate the murder of a beloved librarian.

Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag always swore that he would never return to Montdale, Connecticut, the small mill town where his family lived for generations. He certainly has no desire to interrupt his high life as the newest great American novelist to revisit the town that hates his family and will only bring back memories of his unhappy childhood. But when his childhood sweetheart phones to say that her mother, Mary McKenna, the librarian who inspired Hoagy’s dream to be a writer, has died, Hoagy knows he has to return for her funeral. Especially when Maggie adds that her mother didn’t die of natural causes.

Who would want to murder a beloved mill town librarian? Determined to pay his respects to one of the few people in his hometown he truly cared for, Hoagy hops in his Jaguar and heads to Montdale with his new girlfriend Merilee and even newer basset hound puppy Lulu in tow. The town where his family’s brass mill once thrived is now a toxic, lead-poisoned ghost town filled with illegal drugs, broken families, violence, bitterness, and resentment. Hoagy is surprised to discover former classmate and bullying target, Pete Schlosski, has become the State Police Resident Trooper. But while Pete seems to have forgiven his past tormentors, he doesn’t have any ideas as to which of them might be a killer. Hoagy, on the other hand, has learned plenty about the art of investigation from hours spent in the library, and his four-month-old puppy shows a surprising knack for tracking down clues . . .

Readers will be delighted to return to where it all began and experience Lulu’s very first case in this charming installment of the Edgar Award-nominated Stewart Hoag series.

Series fans will enjoy this peek into the early days of Hoagy and Marilee’s romance.”
—Publishers Weekly

Handler is the master of the sly, comedic mystery.”
—Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Left Undone

Hoagy is always good company.”
―Kirkus

A welcome prequel to the hero’s more jaded adventures.”
―Kirkus

A crackerjack of a crime novel that revisits beloved, beleaguered Hoagy at an earlier point in his life . . . Equal parts charm and cunning, it serves as the proverbial palate cleanser for series loyalists while making an ideal entry point for first time readers alike.”
—Strand Magazine

Hoagy’s origin story is a delight!”
—Tom Straw, New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Joe

David Handler is the Edgar Award-winning, critically acclaimed author of several bestselling mystery series. He began his career as a New York City reporter, and wrote his first two novels―Kiddo (1987) and Boss (1988)―about his Los Angeles childhood. In 1988 he published The Man Who Died Laughing, the first of his long-running series of mysteries starring ghostwriter Stewart Hoag and his faithful basset hound Lulu.

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