I've been reading through the Milan Jacovich series in order. Two things drew me to the series--hearing Les Roberts speak to a writers' group and that the titular character shares a name with an Ohio dentist--something that had confused me a bit until I heard Roberts speak.

I would probably put this entry in the series at slightly below average.

The story takes place in a fictional town in Ashtabula county. Though Roberts gives two pronunciations for the county (the correct one ash-tah-byew-la and an incorrect one ash-tah-boo-la) I've also heard a third: ash-tab-you-la, which is not mentioned.

We used to go to Geneva-on-the-Lake in the summers. It was nice to read a bit about it. I wish more had been mentioned--Roberts missed an opportunity there--but perhaps it was difficult to secure permission to mention real businesses? Eddie's Grill, which I believe deep-fried their hot dogs, and also ran at least one arcade. There used to be a small kiddie-ride park there too (it was sold in the past and all that remains now is the ferris wheel which was bought by one of the wineries)--not sure what year that happened so it might not have fit into Roberts' 2015 book.

I agree with another reviewer that Roberts doesn't paint a rosy picture of his fictional Ashtabula County town--most of his town appears racist/intolerant. There's a private prison that's there to make a profit and doesn't seem to care if it's inmates eat horsemeat or have to work as forced labor without pay. The local law looks the other way while a family cooks meth. I believe the pastor says something like "hate the sin, love the sinner" but it seems his congregation mostly "hate the sin and harass the sinner"--it's a small town and we're repeatedly told that others know your business, so I can't believe the pastor doesn't know what his congregation is doing, yet he does nothing to temper their rabid actions.

I'm not sure we were given enough clues by the author to know who the killer was. ( )

Milan and K.O. follow Cleveland detective Tobe Blaine to Queenstown Ohio to help her solve a murder case. The town however has got to be the most racist town in world. The preacher teaches his flock to hate blacks, gays, you name it. This will not be an easy case to solve.

I was so excited to finally receive my copy of The Ashtabula Hat Trick as I love reading about Milan and company. This book not so much. Gone is the usual light hearted banter between Milan and K.O. In todays world when you simply cannot turn on the tv and listen to news because of all the racial tension and accusations I open a book to get away from all that. Unfortunately for me this is all this book is about. It just had a different feel then the other Milan Jacovich books and it was one I didn't care for.

I won this from LibraryThing Early Reviewer for and honest review. ( )

The 18th book in the Milan Jacovich series, The Ashtabula Hat Trick is, unfortunately, the weakest in the series. There are a few reasons for this. A few books back, author Les Roberts gave his private detective a sidekick, Kevin, K.O., O'Bannion. The transitions from first-person, Milan chapters, to close third-person K.O. chapters don't always work. This book also has a third main character, Milan's girlfriend, Detective Sergeant Tobe Blaine, who has a few chapters of her own. The series was stronger when told just from Milan's perspective. While these characters are fairly well-fleshed out, most of the other characters are not. In fact, it is disappointing that a book with a theme about tolerance to different races and sexual orientation has its main characters constantly denigrating rural, uneducated, and religious people in a fairly sweeping way. The mystery itself is fine, although Milan and crew don't solve it as much as have the murderer fall into their lap. Definitely for completists only. ( )

Queenstown, Ohio, in Ashtabula County, was a very small town near Lake Erie n northeast Ohio. Unlike the idealistic small town of people’s imaginations, however, it had an ugly underside. The murder of two of its long time residents, one by stabbing and one by being hit on the head with a club, lead to the exposures of some of that underside.
When the police chief of the three-man department found himself unable to solve the murders, the first in the town’s history, he turned to the Cleveland Police Department for help. The CPD sent Detective Sergeant Tobe Blaine to help out. She, in turn, brought along her boyfriend, Private Investigator Milan Jacovich to assist. Their mere presence opened one of the major secrets: The people of Queenstown were extremely bigoted and the sight of a black woman, particularly a police officer, and her white lover, immediately made many of them reluctant to cooperate.
A third murder, the drowning of a woman by someone holding her head underwater in her spa, led Tobe and Milan to call for additional help in the form of Milan’s young assistant, K.O. (Kevin O’Bannion) When he showed up, their opposition to homosexuality became a major issue as well.
The town seemed to run rather well. “This isn’t Cleveland. It’s a remote corner of Nowhere. We don’t worry about government ruled; we make our own.” In most cases, it worked.
One main source of employment and revenue was the nearby state prison in Conneaut. It had been pretty good until it was privatized three years previously. Since then, it became overcrowded and unsanitary and the prisoners suffered from abuse, awful food, and a lack of any programs to help them become rehabilitated..Many of the Queenstown residents worked there while they waited for a relative or friend to be released.
As the trio tried to determine what the victims had in common, the only thing they could find was that they all attended the same ultra-conservative church, so much, but not all, of the investigation centered around the minister and the congregation.
One person they interviewed stated,“I don’t always agree with everything the parson says.” Milan responded: “I don’t agree with everything anyone says. Life’d be better if we thought for ourselves once in a while.”
The minister and many of the congregants, in a situation that is all to frequent, tended to focus on specific actions and ideas as major sins. They were not above twisting parts of the Bible to match their own opinions. For example, one of their issues was the sin of masturbation and they cited the Biblical story of Onan as the source of that prohibition. The problem is that Onan was not censured for masturbating. His sin was refusing to follow the Levirate Law which required a man to impregnate his sister-in-law after the death of his brother so that his brother would have an heir. This would have economic consequences since the child would receive the inheritance of the deceased son. So Onan withdrew from Tamar and “spilled his seed” instead. That was his sin. But that was not the way the church taught it.
Other areas discussed include drugs and infidelity.
Interesting point: Coshoctan is the northernmost city in Ohio.
The book is an easy, well-written read with several red herrings but, if you pay close attention, you may be able to figure out the killer or killers on your own.. K.O. shows that he is well-qualified for his job as he grows into his role. My main criticism is that the story is shallow: Too many interviews just skim the surface and end with leaving the reader wondering what the trio had hoped to learn and what they learned that made the inclusion necessary. ( )