From Publishers Weekly
Harry James Denton, a private investigator, has been hired to find a very rich, very troubled, teenage girl. Having runaway from her prominent family, 17-year-old Stacy Jameson has sunk into the sleaze, sex, and sin side of Nashville. These settle over the hero's head like dark netting, slowing and blinding him as he searches the grim bottom of the city. There are many weak links in the novel: too many detailed driving descriptions, dialogue which doesn't work, a few cardboard characters, and a slow start. But readers will be rewarded if they stick with it as the novel gets better with each page. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
FOOLS RUSH IN. . .
I'd done some crazy stuff off-and-on the last couple of years. My life had gone off in some weird directions. But nothing could match yanking a stoned, naked, sick seventeen-year-old girl out of a murder scene and sneaking her off under the nose of the police.
Harry James Denton is no fool. But his search for a rich runaway teen, Stacey Jameson, takes him to the seamy and very wild side of Nashville. Nobody's chain lays straight, a friend tells Harry. But Stacey's is especially twisted, with links that lead back to a family filled with secrets. Even a hardboiled P.I. like Harry isn't prepared for what awaits him in the depths of hard-core hell, where only he can save a lost girl before she destroys herself or lets a ruthless murderer do it for her.
"Steven Womack has done for male private eye fiction what Grafton and Paretsky did for women operatives in the Eighties, and if you haven't heard of him yet, you will."
--Mostly Murder


From the Paperback edition.


From the Publisher
Steven Womack -- like his protagonist Harry James Denton -- is truly one of a kind. I recall being seated next to Steve at my very first Edgar Awards banquet and noting the white tux (w/ tails!) he wore with complete confidence. He deserved to feel right at home among his writing peers. Steve's first Nashville-set novel about Harry Denton (DEAD FOLKS' BLUES) had won an Edgar a few years earlier. And his recent MURDER MANUAL is worthy of another Edgar!

However, my favorite Steven Womack novel may be CHAIN OF FOOLS. CHAIN OF FOOLS details the darker side of Nashville: runaway teens, seedy strip clubs, drug dealers, and a vicious murderer hunting the young lady Harry Denton is sent to find and protect. It's hardly a cozy, but Denton's humanity shines through the bleak chaos. If you like your mysteries dark and dangerous, CHAIN OF FOOLS will not disappoint.

--Patrick Price, Senior Publicist



From the Inside Flap
FOOLS RUSH IN. . .
I'd done some crazy stuff off-and-on the last couple of years. My life had gone off in some weird directions. But nothing could match yanking a stoned, naked, sick seventeen-year-old girl out of a murder scene and sneaking her off under the nose of the police.
Harry James Denton is no fool. But his search for a rich runaway teen, Stacey Jameson, takes him to the seamy and very wild side of Nashville. Nobody's chain lays straight, a friend tells Harry. But Stacey's is especially twisted, with links that lead back to a family filled with secrets. Even a hardboiled P.I. like Harry isn't prepared for what awaits him in the depths of hard-core hell, where only he can save a lost girl before she destroys herself or lets a ruthless murderer do it for her.
"Steven Womack has done for male private eye fiction what Grafton and Paretsky did for women operatives in the Eighties, and if you haven't heard of him yet, you will."
--Mostly Murder


From the Paperback edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

FOOLS RUSH IN. . .
I'd done some crazy stuff off-and-on the last couple of years. My life had gone off in some weird directions. But nothing could match yanking a stoned, naked, sick seventeen-year-old girl out of a murder scene and sneaking her off under the nose of the police.
Harry James Denton is no fool. But his search for a rich runaway teen, Stacey Jameson, takes him to the seamy and very wild side of Nashville. Nobody's chain lays straight, a friend tells Harry. But Stacey's is especially twisted, with links that lead back to a family filled with secrets. Even a hardboiled P.I. like Harry isn't prepared for what awaits him in the depths of hard-core hell, where only he can save a lost girl before she destroys herself or lets a ruthless murderer do it for her.
"Steven Womack has done for male private eye fiction what Grafton and Paretsky did for women operatives in the Eighties, and if you haven't heard of him yet, you will."
—Mostly Murder

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly