From Publishers Weekly
Mayor writes so well about his native Vermont and the highs and lows of police work that even an outlandish plot straight from an old James Bond story doesn't spoil the pleasures of his latest (after Bellows Falls, 1997; The Ragman's Memory, 1996) Joe Gunther mystery. "Vermont at night has always made me think of the eighteenth century, when its few inhabitants surrendered the darkened fields and forests to the mysterious elements that helped fuel Indian folklore on one side, and settlers' fears on the other," Brattleboro's chief of detectives thinks as he drives home one evening. Later, of the state's bleak Northeast Kingdom, Gunther muses, "Poorer, colder, and less inhabited than the rest of Vermont, it remained the most stalwart reminder of the ice age's grinding havoc." Moments like these, plus poignant visits to a couple of under-touristed memorials (to law-enforcement officers and Korean War veterans) ground the flight of a story that begins with the discovery of the body of a garrotted old Russian and ends with a shoot-out between rival Russian gangs?orchestrated by the CIA?involving some space-age technology. Mayor has linked Gunther's Vermont with the rest of the world's problems before; this story is a farther stretch but no less pleasurable for the reach.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
In Brattleboro, Vermont, and for detective lieutenant Joe Gunther, things usually are what they seem. But the discovery of a garroted corpse with Cyrillic tattoos on its toes flings Gunther into a surreal confrontation that may be the CIA versus the KGB, a 40-year-old personal vendetta among now-aged cold warriors, a battle between rival Russian mafiosi, or something else entirely. All Gunther knows for sure is that his odds of surviving are very long, and if he does survive, his career is almost certainly over. Mayor's Joe Gunther novels are among the best cop stories being written today. The sense of place Mayor creates is vivid and real, whether he's writing about Vermont's economically bleak small cities or the harsh wilderness of the Northeast Kingdom. So, too, are the recurring characters and the prickly, complex relationships they maintain with one another. In this one, Joe worries that the shadowy forces he's battling view him as the Disposable Man. Not to worry, Joe, you're indispensable.
Thomas Gaughan
