"THE SURROGATE THIEF" by Archer Mayor (A)

This is another Vermont detective Joe Gunther story. It is everything that a novel should be: a great read, a compelling story, fine characterizations, interesting relationships, and an ominous villain or villains lurking discretely in the background. An old mystery is opened up by a new death and then the body count mysteriously begins to rise. Is there a connection? That is what Joe Gunther of the Vermont VBI wants to know. As a longtime policeman with finely tuned gut instincts and a curious mind, he strongly suspects that a recent death is somehow connected to an unsolved murder that had happened decades before.  

This is a far superior novel to the previously reviewed Mayor book, "The Second Mouse." That book, while still a good read, is nowhere near as good as this one. It is interesting to read multiple novels by the same author. Some are more or less by the numbers, while others are inspired. Some have rather tortured plots and a story line that moves obliquely in order to tie everything together at the end. Other novels by the same author flow like a lazy river slowly and quietly towards a conclusion that is unexpected but inevitable when you look back at the story. Reading the latter is a most satisfying experience.

Archer Mayor is not a masterful writer like Robert Crais or Peter Spiegelman with every word a jewel and each sentence a linguistic delight. His novels are written much more in the common sense, down to earth manner as would be expected of a New England writer who chooses his words wisely with great economy of thought. His strengths are in his well-crafted stories, interesting characters, and the wonderful locales in Vermont and elsewhere in New England. The crimes that Gunther is called to solve are not set in the big cities of New York or LA, and that gives them a special charm all of their own.

A domestic dispute breaks out in a trailer park and a local policemen is called to quell the disturbance. The unexpected happens and VBI detective Joe Gunther is called in to the crime scene. A gun is found and a trace is run on it during the normal course of the investigation. Gunther and the other investigators are shocked to learn that the same gun was involved in an unsolved murder decades before and has apparently been hidden for years.

That unsolved murder has always been a source of great concern for Gunther, who was the investigating cop on the scene. A store owner was shot during the heist of the office safe, apparently by a local punk, and he went to the hospital in a coma. His wife agitated Gunther for months to solve the crime, but Gunther was preoccupied by the health of his own wife, Ellen, who was dying from breast cancer in the same hospital close by in another room on the same floor. His beloved wife took six months to succumb, and, in a strange and very unhappy quirk of circumstance, the robbery victim also died within days of the passing of Gunther's wife. Gunther was so emotionally devastated by the prolonged death of his wife that he never could bring himself to concentrate on solving the crime. The prime suspect fled town and disappeared, while the bereaved wife also left town two weeks after her husband's death. Her life ruined, she committed suicide shortly thereafter in another town. The case was never solved.

Now all of these old emotional scars are being reopened at the worst time possible. Gunther has been in a long term relationship with Gail Zigman, a town selectman for Brattleboro. Theirs is an unconventional relationship with each going as they please and living in separate homes. Gunther had promised himself never to get close to another woman to protect his vulnerability while Gail had been raped as a young girl, so she also lives with her own walls and limits in her relationships. That being said, they have become very comfortable with each other. 

The only flaw is that Gail has aspirations to statewide office. She is running as an underdog liberal Democratic candidate, first to defeat her Democratic challengers and then to face a well-financed Republican for the office of State Senator. Gunther, conservative by nature in his political views, now finds that Gail's home has been turned into a command center for her election bid. They both are sorrowful to discover that their relationship is taking a back seat to her political quest and his preoccupation with righting a wrong and making good on a promise given long ago to a distraught wife. 

This book is recent, so it is available at both your local bookstore and the library. Take my word for it, get it and sit back for a wonderful trip!

Enjoy, enjoy a good read whenever you can. Carl