From Publishers Weekly
Introspective and deliberate in his methods, Lt. Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, Vt., police is a reliable since they're practically synonyms focal point in a mystery that includes graphic emergency medical scenes, adrenalin-producing car chases and lots of cat-and-mouse suspense. After the body of Charlie Jardine, a local stockbroker with a sleazy reputation, is found buried in an embankment near a busy street, Patrolman John Woll, whose wife was seeing the victim, becomes the prime suspect. Gunther isn't convinced that Woll is guilty, however, and his doubts grow stronger when small-time drug dealer Milly Crawford is shot dead before Gunther can get a warrant to search his place for a tie-in with drug-user Jardine. Gunther suspects and then locates a bug in his office, and so must trace its source in the midst of the murder investigation's demands. With enough twists and turns to keep the reader on chair's edge, Mayor's ( Borderline ) action-packed tale includes interesting local history as seen by Gunther, an observant, appealing guide. Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
An honorable failure in which the author's forensic expertise, plain-speaking, and love of Vermont don't quite compensate for a plot that falls apart three quarters of the way through. Brattleboro's Lt. Joe Gunther (Borderlines; Open Season) must decide whether all the clues leading to alcoholic cop John Woll as the murderer of Johnny-come-lately Wall Street investor Charlie Jardine are real or a setup--and if he didn't kill him, who did? To complicate matters, there's an information leak in the police department; the media is making a three-ring circus of the case; and several more are killed before Gunther can check out their ties to Jardine, whose chief mourner seems to be Woll's wife. Shoot- outs, secret meetings, and a police stakeout in the high school come into play before Gunther, several steps behind the reader, can lock up the case. The most vivid writing details the collapse of a heart wall during emergency bullet-removal, and Mayor's strength remains his lucid explanations of high-tech forensics. But neither can carry a story with an all-too-identifiable villain and flimsy clues. A miss, then, but still an author to be reckoned with. --
Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
