Jack Dixon

Created by Daniel M. Ford

Affable, battered Maryland investigator JACK DIXON takes on the world with a jaundiced eye and a cutting wit, from the deck of the Belle of Joppa, the houseboat he lives on.

If it sounds rather familiar and conjures up a rather McGee-esque vibe, well, at least the author’s heart seems to be in the right place, and peace-loving, polite-to-a-fault Jack is enough of an original to beat down cries of rip-off.

A college dropout, with a CV that includes stints as both a cook and a cop, Jack now works as an agent for Dent-Clark Investigations, but he stands out even further from the crowd not so much for his simple, almost monastic lifestyle — he only owns one suit, and doesn’t own a car — but for his unexpected pacifism: he doesn’t carry a gun, and he’s become a master at turning the other cheek. Publishers Weekly even suggests he “would rather get beat up than shot,” but then, really, who wouldn’t?

But it’s his persistence and particularly his first-person takes on the world as he sees it that makes him a fun character to follow. In his promising debut, 2019’s Body Broker, this principled loner is on the hunt for a missing teenage track star, tangling with drug dealing bikers, greedy real estate developers and various overly enthusiastic security personnel.

Good stuff.