It was the shot heard ‘round the world: On July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway died from a shotgun blast. It’s 1965, and two men have come to Ketchum, Idaho to confront the widow Mary Hemingway - men who have serious doubts about the true circumstances of Hemingway’s death. One is Hector Lassiter, the oldest and best of Hemingway’s friends, the last man standing of the Lost Generation. The other is Hemingway scholar Richard Paulson who sets out to prove that Mary actually murdered her famous husband. Print the Legend is a literary thriller about Hemingway’s death and the patina that perceived suicide lends the author’s legend, an exploration of the sinister shadow play and co-dependence that binds authors and their academics. It is a love story that finds the aging Hector Lassiter striving to protect the young and pregnant Hannah Paulson as sinister forces gather around her, threatening her and her unborn child.
Ingeniously plotted and executed, Print the Legend is an epic masterpiece from Craig McDonald. Beginning to end, I was riveted by this story of character, history and intrigue. -Michael Connelly
Hector Lassiter is a compelling character but also a fascinating forum for McDonald’s historical, social, and artistic observations. For all the wonderful action, slick dialogue, and plot twists McDonald throws at the reader, he’s equally interested in saying something substantial about time and place. Not to be missed. -Michael Koryta
With each of his Hector Lassiter novels, Craig McDonald has stretched his canvas wider and unfurled tales of increasingly greater resonance. With Print the Legend , his triumphant third novel in the series, McDonald cunningly blends high, low and pulp American culture at the mid-century. While the scale is immense, McDonald’s hand is deft, and we never forget that, at its center, this is a human story, complex and bruising and deeply felt. As big as the scope, we are never far from the novel’s true, pulsing center: the sumptuously etched characters of the widow Mary Hemingway, aspiring writer Hannah Paulson and our beloved Hector himself. -Megan Abbott
McDonald skillfully and ingeniously mixes fact with fiction… McDonald’s background as a journalist and crime fiction critic helps him to piece together an intriguing literary thriller. -Mystery Scene
