Bad Scene

Bad Scene (Colleen Hayes #3)<br />by Max Tomlinson <br /><br />It's still 1978 San Francisco and in this third book of the series Colleen Hayes is still trying to find her daughter. The daughter who she feels so much guilt about, the daughter she killed for, the daughter who was worth the nine years she spent in prison. Colleen would do almost anything for her daughter but her daughter hates her and would rather spend time with cults than with her. <br /><br />Really, several things aren't going right for Colleen. She's lost track of her daughter and a street friend of hers has word of Pamela's whereabouts. But then he is attacked to almost the point of death so she's going to try to bring justice for Lucky, her unlucky friend. There is also the rumor of plans to assassinate the mayor of the city and Colleen has let law enforcement know but she's not sure they believe her. While juggling all these important balls, Colleen is pretty sure she is being followed/stalked by someone and she still has to earn a buck with her private detective work so she is following/stalking a philanderer so she can get proof of his misdeeds. <br /><br />Pretty much nothing stops Colleen except knowing she has to avoid getting in so much trouble that she gets her parole yanked. She's dealing with some bad folks on both sides of the law and she even ends up in Ecuador when she realizes the latest cult her daughter is in glorifies self sacrifice to the point of suicide. As usual, we get a taste of the gaudy fashion of the time and also the music. The music comments are usually pretty funny for me, because I remember those songs and nowadays it would be hard to keep a straight face during serious moments if those songs were blaring in the background. <br /><br />Pub Aug 3, 2021<br /><br />Thank you to Oceanview Publishing and Edelweiss for this ARC.

HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY!<br /><br />My favorite badass PI with a heart of gold, Colleen Hayes, is back! This is book #3, and it publishes in 8 months. I couldn’t resist, and now I’m kicking myself because who knows how long I’ll have to wait for the next installment? ?‍♂️ <br /><br />Anyhoo...<br /><br />It’s still 1978, only a short time after the events of TIE DIE, and Colleen is working on capturing proof of a cheating spouse. This is not the way she likes to spend her days, but as an ex-con making a go of it as a PI, she’ll take what she can get. <br /><br />Things pick up when one of her street informants gives word that a government official is planning to murder the mayor of San Francisco. While digging into that, Colleen discovers movement on her estranged daughter, Pam, who is now part of a cult that’s heading to Ecuador...and a very active volcano that is about to erupt. ? <br /><br />Author Max Tomlinson does a fantastic job of leading Colleen from one case to another, and tying that to her daughter. I’m not a big fan of stories involving cults, but the plot point didn’t bother me at all...because the goings-on of the cult never overpowers the story. Hopefully, it won’t bother other readers either (I’m looking at you, Jayme!! ?). <br /><br />Colleen is extremely smart and level headed, and uses a couple of familiar and friendly resources for assistance throughout the book. My jaw dropped at one point when I realized part of the plot incorporated something that happened in real life. Sure enough, Tomlinson acknowledges that in the highly interesting author’s note...and how another part was mirrored after a different real life incident. His atmospheric writing of San Francisco makes you feel like you are there in 1978. It probably helps that he lived there during that timeframe. <br /><br />This is a completely gripping and satisfying addition to the series. I absolutely adore Colleen, who faces grit with determination...and some fun dialogue. <br /><br />Note to Max Tomlinson: Please send me the final draft for book #4 at your earliest convenience so I don’t go out of my mind waiting. <br /><br />Thank you to Oceanview Publishing, Max Tomlinson, and Edelweiss for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It’s 1978. Colleen Hayes is a PI in San Francisco and is also an ex-con. While trying to find her missing daughter Pamela, who wants nothing to do with her, one of her sources alerts her that a local neo-Nazi group is plotting to kill the mayor. The police don’t take the lead seriously so she tries to learn more herself. As Colleen’s search for Pamela continues, she uncovers a deadly cult where members have traveled to Ecuador near a volcano and she fears a mass suicide may occur. <br /><br />Sadly, we know from history that in November, 1978, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were murdered. And also in 1978, a San Francisco-based cult traveled to Jonestown and the tragic outcome is well known. This is not the cult in the book but reflects the turbulent time period.<br /><br /><b>Bad Scene</b> is the third book in the Colleen Hayes mystery series. And while events parallel the history of the city by the bay, it is essentially a series about a complex woman who yearns to rebuild her relationship with her daughter. You don’t have to have read the first two books to enjoy this new installment but each book is so good, it’s worth reading them all. Colleen is fierce yet vulnerable. The series has a nice sense of nostalgia. Can’t wait to see what happens next.<br /><br />Many thanks to Edelweiss+, Oceanview Publishing and author Max Tomlinson for the opportunity to read this enjoyable, action-packed book in advance of its August 3, 2021 publication.<br /><br />Rated 4.25 stars.<br /><br />Review posted on <a href="https://www.michelereader.com/post/bad-scene-colleen-hayes-3-a-gritty-exciting-mystery-set-in-1970s-san-francisco" rel="nofollow noopener">MicheleReader.com</a>.

Max Tomlinson is back with my favorite character, Colleen Hayes, an ex-con (she stabbed her abusive husband, who could blame her) now private investigator in the 1960s/70s. This series began in the 1960s but with Bad Scene we've moved into the groovin 70s, an era filled with disco music, cults and political upheaval. God, I loved the 70s and I absolutely LOVED Bad Scene. <br /><br />Colleen gets a tip from her source, Lucky, that there is going to be an assassination of the Mayor of San Francisco. The group responsible for the information turns out to be skinhead biker group that also holds clues to the whereabouts of Colleens daughter - a cult in South America that is striving for perfection through death via an erupting volcano. If any of this sounds familiar, it is. There is a lot of fact interspersed throughout Bad Scene and those of us who lived through the 70s will instantly recognize the murder of Harvey Milk and insanity of Jim Jones and his suicide cult. One would think the US had learned their lesson from cults but apparently not. <br /><br />Colleen is ever fearless and and she charges full steam ahead trying to solve all of the above before anyone dies. Unfortunately, she only succeeds at a portion of her goals. Bad Scene is a fabulous piece of crime fiction with a well developed, strong female lead set in an era that is ripe for crime stories. Honestly, I'm so sick of WWII that I will read any historical fiction set in the 60s and 70s - thank you Mr. Tomlinson!! Now, somehow I missed the second book in the series so I'm going back to that one today. If you haven't read any of these, go! Now! Grab the first one, Vanishing in the Haight and get started, although they all can be read as stand alone books as well. Please, Max, please don't let this be the last of the series!!!

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.<br /><br />Sometime in the 1970's, a female private eye gets information that there is a plot against the mayor of San Francisco. At the same time, her daughter has joined a doomsday cult. <br /><br />Read it if you're a fan of That 70's Show. All it needs is a guest starring role for Charo.

Fans of private-eye procedurals and partisans of 1970s nostalgia will find much to enjoy in BAD SCENE, the third outing in Max Tomlinson's series featuring convicted-killer-turned-private-investigator Colleen Hayes and set in 1978 San Francisco. <br /><br />Where Hayes' first two adventures, VANISHING IN THE HAIGHT and TIE DYE, mostly addressed the era from a cultural perspective, exploring the city that Colleen Hayes left after the Summer of Love and returned to after a decade in prison to find it buzzing with nervy punk and pre-New Wave energy, Tomlinson broadens the period palette in BAD SCENE by heavily incorporating two major real-life stories from 1978: the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and city Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the Jonestown Massacre led by cult leader Rev. Jim Jones. <br /><br />(Tomlinson plays it pretty straight with the Moscone/Milk murders, basing his private eye's involvement in a later report that found that a conspiracy appeared to extend beyond the convicted killer, ex-Supervisor Dan White, into the San Francisco Police Department. The Jonestown angle is rendered as the fictitious Die Kerk cult, with the climactic action transported to a volcano in Ecuador.) <br /><br />Tomlinson deftly juggles verisimilitude within not just a taut procedural tale of finding out who killed a societal outcast who had potentially vital information about the broader murder conspiracy with several other elements. Key among them is moving Colleen Hayes' series-long search for her estranged daughter Pamela to continually fraught fruition, while making time for a couple of potential-love-interest subplots. Even with all that ambition in play, Tomlinson keeps things moving along in crisply professional and page-turning fashion, making BAD SCENE the most satisfying read yet in this wonderful series. <br /><br />(Thanks to NetGalley and Max Tomlinson for providing me with an advance reading copy of BAD SCENE, set for an August 2021 release.)

If you're a fan of Max Tomlinson's street smart thrillers, this latest is for you. The book mirrors the real-life Nov. 27, 1978, murders of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and supervisor Harvey Milk. Then throw in a Jim Jones-like suicide cult, some drug-dealing gangsters, and a strong female lead and you have the basis for non-stop thrills. I've been reading Max's work for years and he has tremendous insight into the criminal mind, history, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Plus he knows how to tell a good story. I highly recommend his latest thriller and if you haven't already, buy all three titles in the series and prepare to be entertained!

<b>Max Tomlinson is to San Francisco what Raymond Chandler was to Los Angeles</b><br /><br />Tomlinson's latest in the Colleen Hayes series gives a note-perfect evocation of San Francisco in the 1970s. Anyone who's lived there will feel like they're back again, and anyone who hasn't should know that reading Tomlinson is the next best thing to having been there. The City itself joins a large cast of indelibly drawn characters--from the gutsy, intrepid if flawed heroine Colleen to her troubled daughter Pam to the cadre of bumbling or malevolent cops to Colleen's trusty right-hand man Boom to some of the most colorfully disgusting bad guys Tomlinson has written yet. The race to locate and rescue Pam zooms all through the City and down to South America, tying in plot twists mirroring some of the most horrific SF-related events of that time--the Jonestown massacre and the murders of Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Milk. This is one inventive, compelling, lightning-paced book that will keep you transfixed until the end. It's a tale that is begging to be made into a major motion picture. Give yourself the best pandemic present possible: read Bad Scene and then read the rest of Tomlinson's back catalog.

<strong>Another winner for Tomlinson</strong><br /><br />With high stakes and page turning action, Max Tomlinson has done it again. I've read the first two novels in his Colleen Hayes series and found them fresh, with unexpected twists. This one, too, is a winner that dogs deep into San Francisco's history, and weaves it around a face-paced and well written story.

Time travel back to San Francisco 1978, and spend time with Colleen Hayes an ex-con who went to prison for killing an abusive spouse. This third book in the series takes place not longer after Tie Die, the previous book. Colleen is a private Investigator, she gets a tip that a supervisor plans to kill the mayor. Of course, no one believes her. Max Tomlinson does an excellent job weaving a true event in the storyline. <br /><br />Colleen continues her search for her daughter, Pam, who has joined a cult. Pam has never forgiven her mother for killing her father. Colleen learns that the cult is planning a relocation to South America and races to rescue Pam. This bears a resemblance to Jonestown. <br /><br />This book can be read as a stand alone, but I recommend reading the books in order to get a better understanding of Colleen Hayes. Max Tomlinson writes vividly of a San Francisco from the past. The city is as much a main character as Colleen. This series gets better with each book. I anxiously await the next book in the series.<br /><br />Thank you to NetGalley and Oceanview Publishing for an ARC. The review is my own.