"Authoritative."
Publishers Weekly on
The Man Who Fought Alone

"Fun...  He ought to follow this up."
San Jose Mercury-News on
The Man Who Fought Alone

Mick "Brew" Axbrewder was once a great P.I.  That was before he accidentally shot and killed a cop - worse, a cop who happened to be his own brother.  Mow he only works of and on, as muscle for his old partner, Ginny Fistoulari.  It's a living.  And it provides an occasional opportunity for him to dry out.

But their latest case demand more than muscle.  Brew's dead brother's daughter has disappeared.  His brother's widow wants him and Ginny to investigate.  And both of them seem to expect him to sober up.  Because the darkness they're finding under the surface of Sunbelt city Puerto del Sol goes beyond one missing teenager.

Axbrewder will need all his talents to confront that darkness.  Most of all he'll need to confront his own worst enemy - himself.

More than two decades ago, bestselling author Stephen R. Donaldson published three novels about Mick Axbrewder and Ginny Fistoulari as paperback originals under the pseudonym Reed Stephens.  More recently, under his own name, Donaldson published a new novel in the sequence, The Man Who Fought Alone.  Now, for Donaldson's millions of readers worldwide, the first of the original books, The Man Who Killed His Brother, appears under Donaldson's own name in revised form.

The author of eight New York Times bestsellers, including the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Stephen R. Donaldson lives in northern New Mexico.

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Author photo by Beth Alice Edelstein

"As he's done so vividly with Thomas Covenant, Donaldson uses Axbrewder as a vehicle to demonstrate that people, even at their lowest and most wretched, can find transcendence through community, concentration, and disciplined self-cultivation."  The Daily Camera (Boulder, Colorado)

HIS NAME IS MICK AXBREWDER.  HE'S THE MAN WHO RISKED HIS PARTNER, BUT HE DID IT FOR A GOOD REASON.  TO SAVE HER LIFE.

Her name is Ginny Fistoulari, head of Fistoulari Investigations.  He thinks she's gorgeous.  Everybody thinks she's got a bad temper.  He pushed her out on a limb because she was ready to call it quits - to give up on business, life, whatever.

He insisted that they be Reg Haskell's bodyguards, even though Haskell had a gambler's eyes and a lady-killer's smile.  Even though people kept taking shots at Brew with all kinds of artillery - shot guns, M-16's, even a .38 or two for good measure.  And even though there was only one person who was more likely to get killed than he was.

His partner.  But he insisted, because it was the only chance he had to get her going again.  A chance so small most fools would have turned it down.

From amazon.com:

Running away from yourself never works. You'll always catch up.

"Donaldson, at his trademark best, fleshes out the characters to the max...and it's all wrapped around a well-paced, cleverly-plotted mystery that will leave readers wanting more."
- Charleston Post on The Man Who Killed His Brother

Mick "Brew" Axbrewder was once a great P.I. That was before he accidentally shot and killed a cop--worse, a cop who happened to be his own brother. Then Mick's partner, Ginny Fistoulari, blew off her own hand protecting him from a confrontation brought on by his alcoholism. Unsurprisingly, Mick and Ginny aren't on great terms any more.

Now, a week after an incident in which he was shot, barely back on his feet, Mick has agreed against his better judgement to join Ginny in providing security at a "murder mystery camp", where a dozen people stay in an isolated, snowbound lodge to play at being detectives. Then a real killer starts bumping people off, one by one...

As ever, Stephen Donaldson shows why he's regarded as one of America's greatest storytellers, with a tale of human pain and human triumph in The Man Who Tried to Get Away.

A TALE OF A HERO'S DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

Mick Axbrewder has enough problems to kill any ten lesser men.  He's a recovering alcoholic.  He's also healing - painfully and slowly - from a gunshot wound that nearly killed him.  His working partner, Ginny, seems to want as little to do with him as possible.

Now Axbrewder - "Brew" to his friends - is trying to make his way back to self-respect.  It isn't easy.  It doesn't help Ginny has moved him and her to the sprawling, heartless Sunbelt city of Carner, where he can't get the "feel" of the streets.  At least he has work, handling security in the booming martial arts industry centered in Carner.  A world of modern commercial competition and ancient resentments.  A world with hidden stakes, over which someone is evidently willing to kill.

But Brew's real job isn't the one for which he's been hired.  His real job is regaining his own self-respect.

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