Buried in Stone (Paperback)

An Eric Wright detective novel without Charlie Salter seems like a contradiction in terms. Nevertheless, it's a fact. The central figure in Buried in Stone is Mel Pickett, whom we have met before: in A Sensitive Case (1990) he was assigned to help Salter. We learned then that he was a childless widower close to retirement, that his dog was called Willis though she was female (the name comes from a spoonerized quotation from Dickens: "Willis is barking"), and that he was building a log cabin three hours' drive north of Toronto.
Now he has retired and is spending a few days at the cabin, putting some finishing touches to it and eager to describe how he went about it to anyone who will listen. (Eric Wright has done something like this; he loves to work experiences of his own into his books.) A young couple come to tell him that they have found a body lying among rocks just off a little-frequented trail on the other side of the river. He has them tell their story to Lyman Caxton, the one-man police force in the nearby village of Larch River. He has a look at the body and calls in the Ontario Provincial Police. One of the two detectives who come turns out to be a former subordinate of Pickett's in the Toronto force.
The body is identified by Betty Cullen, the local baker (and Caxton's lover), as her somewhat disreputable younger brother, Tim Marlow. This means that Caxton must stay out of the investigation. Pickett tries to stay out of it too, but with limited success.
Eventually the OPP arrest and charge a rather unlikely suspect. Unconvinced, Pickett decides to look into Marlow's past, before he came to live with his sister in Larch River. He takes a train to Winnipeg, partly in order to ride the transcontinental railway once more before passenger trains disappear altogether, and then rents a car to drive to a fishing camp on the Lake of the Woods, where Marlow once worked as a guide. Wright clearly enjoyed writing about a fishing camp in his 1994 non-detective novel, Moodie's Tale: it makes by far the best part of that book. And this episode allows him to return to the subject briefly. Information Pickett picks up here leads him to further investigation in Winnipeg. Then, back in Larch River, he has a sudden insight that turns the case upside down; in Wright's more felicitous phrase, "it was like one of those optical puzzles where the foreground becomes the background as soon as you focus your eyes correctly."
I think this is probably the best piece of detection Wright has achieved. It's enhanced by the convincing picture of small-town life in the southern Canadian Shield, and by the discreet, pleasant elderly love affair Pickett carries on with the woman who manages the coffee shop attached to the local service station. We leave him happily settled for the rest of life.
But now, please, I want to know what's been happening in the lives of Charlie Salter, his wife Annie, and their sons Angus and Seth. They're friends of mine. I. M. Owen(Books in Canada) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

It turns out that being 60 isn't any easier than being 16 for retired Toronto policeman Mel Pickett, who showed up in one of Wright's Charlie Salter novels, A Sensitive Case. What distinguishes Wright's crime writing is the wry sensitivity with which he explores the uncertainties that dog his older characters?that, and his sure way with a murder plot. Both these gifts are in evidence in this series launch. In the small town of Larch River, 150 miles north of Toronto, widower Mel has built his dream cabin from scratch, made a few good friends and gently romanced Charlotte Mercer, who runs the local diner. But full-fledged retirement and leisure are put on the back burner when Timmy Marlow is found dead. Timmy's only grieving relative is his sister Betty, girlfriend of the local cop. The cop hated Timmy's guts, as did the legions of women he loved and left. At the time of his death, Timmy had one stupid pal, a spotty job record and some money that belonged to Betty. Mel is often comically unsure of himself for a man of retirement age, and he occasionally manages to foul up his life in an effort to avoid embarrassment. But his cop's mind seldom lets him down, and the solution to the murder is a cunning one. Missing out on Charlie Salter is a high price for following Mel on the trail. But it's a price worth paying.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.