Truxton—“My parents named me after a highway sign”—Lewis is a retired NYPD Captain of Detectives. He is a young 62, and using his retirement to travel the United States by housesitting—
“Mature
Male Available for Housesitting, Non-Smoker, No Pets, Widower.”
Tru gets free lodging, and the traveling homeowners get reassurance
their house is safe. Tru is on a job in rural Kentucky when he discovers the
nearly lost art of dry stone walls; rock walls with no mortar. Max Beasley, a
curmudgeonly old-timer, is the only local mason who still constructs the walls.
Max agrees to take Tru as apprentice, but Tru’s job description changes when he
arrives at the job site and a portion of the wall has been knocked down, and
even more strangely, Max is not there.
It turns out Max is in jail for the murder of a land
developer whose body was found beneath the collapsed stones of the wall. Max had
refused to sell his property, and the developer tried multiple methods of
persuasion, including physical intimidation. Methods Max didn’t like. Tru is
convinced Max is innocent of the crime, and he spends the rest of the novel
proving it.
Dry
Stone Walls is the first in a promising new series. It is a
comfortable whodunit rich with dialogue, a likeable protagonist, small-town
paranoia—of outsiders like Tru—and a cast of oddball characters; a local
Sheriff who allows Max’s temporary escape from county jail, an old woman wanting
to help Max get “off the hook,”
without “puttin’ [herself] on it!” and
a bookkeeper who is a gin rummy prodigy.
The mystery is also good. There is enough going on the keep
things interesting; an FBI agent working undercover at the murdered man’s
office, and the local residents’ unwillingness to give Tru an honest answer. The
killer is identified earlier than expected, but a satisfying twist in the final
pages keeps things interesting.
Mystery Scene Back Issue #140,Summer 2015 (Canada) |
No comments:
Post a Comment