Knocked for a Loop

The John J. Malone Series, Book 10

By: Craig Rice

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

Being framed for murder is the least of a Chicago attorney’s problems in this dizzying thriller.

Attorney John J. Malone, steadfast, barfly, and proud defender of the guilty, has a lot of enemies, but few more formidable than Chicago financier and anti-vice crusader Leonard Estapole. So it doesn’t look good when Estapole’s corpse turns up in Malone’s office, liberated from this life by a bronze Buddha to the skull. But when the stiff’s stepdaughter is kidnapped and Malone is implicated, it’s a frame job gone too far. Especially when Malone is suddenly saddled with the obnoxious abductee - a dimpled little extortionist who refuses to go home.

If only Malone could count on his friends, Jake and Helene Justus. Unfortunately, Helene’s disappeared from a Wyoming dude ranch, and her friendship with Estapole’s trophy-wife widow is too coincidental for comfort. Now, with every blindsiding twist of the case, Malone is starting to feel more and more like a hostage himself.

The first mystery writer to ever make the cover of Time magazine, Craig Rice is a “composite of Agatha Christie’s ingenuity, Dashiell Hammett’s speed, and Dorothy Sayers’s wit” (Louis Untermeyer). And in Knocked for a Loop, she’s in “top form” (Jon L. Breen, Edgar Award-winning author).

©1957 by Craig Rice (P)2020 by Blackstone Publishing

Fun and entertaining

I have enjoyed all the Craig Rice books so far. What makes the story even better is the narrator, Johnny Heller. You won’t be disappointed.

Spectacular as usual

Every book gets better and this is no exception. Straight into action and it doesn’t stop.

knocked for a look

Chris Rice is a good author. his books short of remind me of a fifties/sixties detective movie I might have caught on television. it's got a little humor thrown in who's, in my opinion, is always a great thing.
The narrator, Johnny Heller, is the best in three business. I've lived everything I've heard from him. he reads it as though he wrote it himself. .. with so much character and feeling and some great voices.