1987 mystery; sixth of MacLeod's novels of Professor Peter Shandy. The
old pond that provides startup hydropower to the Balaclava
Agricultural College's methane plant is the site of the annual
Groundhog Day festivities; this year it's also where a body has
floated to the surface.
But when the parents who might have identified him turn out to
have been poisoned, it's another case for the over-stretched local
police department, and Deputy Shandy its main detective.
"We got no more murders than anyplace else," Ottermole protested.
"It's just that we don't pussyfoot around calling 'em what they
ain't. Chief Olson over at Lumpkinton, he finds a body with six
bullets in it, tied up with clothesline, an' stuffed into an old
icebox. There's six fresh holes shot through the icebox door, an' he
tries to pass it off as suicide while of unsound mind because the
stiff's his wife's cousin's brother-in-law."
This is one of MacLeod's better-trodden narrative settings, and this
volume is curiously short of the gaiety that's marked most of her
writing up to this point. Yes, murder is a serious business, and yes,
there are still comic-relief locals, but with a wide array of suspects
Shandy finds himself thinking worriedly even about people he's known
for a while. Rather than the usual sillinesses of the College, there's
a down-at-heel bar and much discussion of post-mortem findings.
Several of the series's recurring characters are mentioned, but few of
them get much time on the page.
I'm not even entirely convinced the plot makes sense from the point of
view of the villain – at the very least it seems rather foolish and
premature, not to mention unnecessarily complex. Of course, much real
villainy is like that.
I read this on a hot day, and it did its job as a short intermission
between slightly heavier books; but I find myself in retrospect not
particularly enthused. It's all right, but if this were the first or
second book of MacLeod's I'd read I wouldn't find myself racing to get
hold of the next one.
Followed by Vane Pursuit.
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