Steve Hamilton gets back to his ‘old stuff,’ starting with Nick Mason

When I heard Steve Hamilton had a new book coming out, I thought it would be another entry in the long-running Alex McKnight series, about a former Detroit cop turned private eye. Hamilton has written 11 books and two short stories in the series.

However, fans of McKnight will have to wait a bit longer because Hamilton’s new book is the third installment of another series following Nick Mason, a reluctant assassin — or, as the book’s title proclaims, “An Honorable Assassin.” He was forced into the line of work by a Chicago crime lord upon his release from prison.

Hamilton’s dedicated followers will not be disappointed. The new book is like a ride with an Uber driver in Chicago: a thrill per minute.

When we reconnect with Mason, he’s on a plane to Jakarta, Indonesia, with the hope that he’s put his life as an assassin behind him, but that’s not to be. He soon gets in over his head when he learns he must kill a dangerous, well-protected criminal, or his family back in the United States will be eliminated.

The last Mason book, “Exit Strategy,” was published in 2017, which the author admits is a long time between releases. His last full-length McKnight book, “Dead Man Running,” was published in 2018.

In an interview from upstate New York, the author said he’s been working on several collaborations in the interim, including co-authoring “The Bounty” with New York Times bestselling mystery writer Janet Evanovich in 2021.

“I then decided it was time to get back to old stuff,” he said. After all, his “old stuff” was quite successful: He’s sold more than 1 million books in the McKnight series and won Edgar, Shamus and Barry awards for a standalone novel, “The Lock Artist.” Two of his novels were named notable books of the year by The New York Times.

Hamilton is a native of Detroit and a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he won the prestigious Hopwood Award for fiction.

He said he’s visited Schuler Books for all his releases, starting with “A Cold Day in Paradise” in 1998. He’ll return to Schuler’s Okemos location at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 29 for a discussion and book signing.

“An Honorable Assassin” not only finds Mason back on his quest to leave his life of crime and murder behind — it also finds him in an environment where he’s totally disoriented. He doesn’t know anyone and doesn’t speak the language.

“It helps make the plot more unsettling when Mason wakes up in a place where everyone speaks a different language. Jakarta is not a cabin in the woods or a condo in Chicago on the Gold Coast,” Hamilton said, referencing previous settings in the series. “There’s no expectation of what happens next.”

Amid this chaos, Mason is forced to work with two nefarious partners. One is a mysterious woman, Luna, who’s somehow more vicious than Mason himself.

“She’s better at killing than Nick is. This is the first time I’ve written about a female protagonist who’s better at what she does than the male protagonist,” Hamilton said.

The unlikely partnership adds a dramatic edge to the book.

The protagonists of Hamilton’s two series are as different as night and day. McKnight is a knight-errant who often finds himself on the wrong side of bad guys’ fists, while Mason is the one dealing the blows.

Hamilton said he’s anxious to continue the McKnight series. On his next foray into Michigan, the author will make his way to the Upper Peninsula for research.

“Once you cross the bridge, everything feels different,” Hamilton said. “The U.P. is a great place to set a crime novel, and when I’m there, I’m hyperaware of my surroundings.”

He cited one of his trips to the U.P., where he discovered a sign reading “Misery Bay” while driving on a back road. 

“I thought, ‘Why would you name a place Misery Bay?’ I set my novel there,” he said.

Hamilton said he dreams of opening a Scottish Bar in the U.P., similar to the one McKnight hangs out in.