Archer Mayor's _Bellows Falls_: This is the book I lost,
which turned up under my pillow. It was not very interesting
in the beginning, at least for the sleepy reader, because of
an initial prologue-type incident in the work of
Brattleboro's Lieutenant Joe Gunther that is then dropped for
a great many pages. The overall plot has to do with Gunther
being called to investigate a charge of sexual harassment by
a citizen against a police officer in another town.
Apparently, this is how such accusations are handled in a law
enforcement agency way too small to have its own internal
affairs unit. This book is mostly about police work from one
officer's POV, with only enough of his personal life thrown
in to prove he's a real human being. It has a great deal of
discussion--too much for those of us who aren't
interested--about the formal and informal interactions of the
various towns' police forces, the state police, county
prosecutors, the state attorney general's office, and various
statewide task forces, especially in the decision process of
who should pursue a suspected network of Fagan-style drug
dealers. Then again, I enjoyed all the geographical and
sociological description of Vermont, which others might not.
I think of the state as full of mountains and rock-ribbed
dairy farmers, for example, not big lakes and sleazy dopers,
and this new view is what has stayed with me from this
book.
Peter Turnbull's _And Did Murder Him_: The location is
Glasgow, and the plot concerns an apparent knife fight
between two junkies that turns out to involve upper levels of
society, according to the cover flap, so I figured I'd love
this book. However, it's novella length with a dozen or so
often-repetitive points of view, mostly police, whom I
readily confused, and much of the story, draped over a meager
plot, has to do with the various officers' personal lives--a
drinking problem that is affecting job performance, for
example. If this book is part of a continuing series, these
bits may be development that are interesting to readers who
have been following these lives, but they're padding to me.
Big chunks of text are thrown in, I suppose to answer an
editor's query of "huh?" We interview a suspect's mother at
length, for no particular reason, and learn how he was taught
to handle a knife properly on account of his father's having
tripped and thus stabbing himself to death while carrying a
knife carelessly. There are lots of other unplugged
holes--can a lawyer whose practice is the government-financed
defense of impecunious minor crooks really afford a sumptuous
lifestyle? for instance. People tell me Turnbull's books are
excellent, and I can only conclude that this one was a
desperate attempt to fulfill a publication commitment.
John Westermann's _Ladies of the Night_: This is a police
(and politics) procedural about Nassau County, New York,
Police Commissioner Frank Murphy, written by a former Long
Island police officer. The women of the title are not what
you might think but rather high-ranking, more-or-less
respectable county Republican party movers and shakers who
keep disappearing. The time frame is the upcoming county
commissioner elections, in which the first credible
Democratic candidate in generations has surfaced. The
protagonist has to balance good police work and constant
political double-guessing, if not outright interference. The
county commissioner's own personal, totally loyal police
officer bodyguard reminded me of the Rizzo years, although I
suppose the practice is common. The plot has lots of
potential suspects, twists and turns, and exciting chase
scenes. The writing also has some broadly drawn characters,
wit, and humor, which I find a big plus, but everyone might
not. All in all, I'm going to order this author's other
police procedurals (which are apparently not a series with
continuing characters) from Powell's, which will enable me,
at long last, to get _1974_ without paying any shipping and
handling.
And a question: I notice that when I'm doing online shopping
there is often little information available about a book,
even at amazon.com, especially if the book is a few years old
(let alone a couple of decades old). Although I may be wrong,
I figure it's legal to paste what I write here and on other
lists about books onto reader review places such as those on
amazon.com. But is that considered proper behavior
("netiquette," although I dislike the word)?
Joy, who also means to cover a lot more police procedurals
she's bought
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