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December 05, 2008
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 | OLD TOWN by Bill Vernon | Reviewed by Midge Baker |  | Publisher: Five Star Publications
http://www.gale.com/fivestar/
ISBN: 1594145520
Genre: Fiction
Subgenre: Mystery
Release date: Jun 2007
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 316
Price: $25.95
| Cliff Saunders is a curmudgeon, moral by his own lights but moody. He has a history of difficulties with authorities and wants no more. Then he finds his running companion dead on the bike trail they had used. His first instinct is to walk away, not to get involved. He'd call 911 if his friend were alive and it would help. But Sammy is dead, his skull battered and bloody. Cliff leaves unobserved and goes home. Grieved by his friend's death, he suddenly finds himself calling the police to report the body.
Thus Cliff embroils himself in the murder case. He is surprised and outraged when the police insist on considering him the prime suspect. He makes matters worse for himself by doing his own private invesigations. But he does learn things. His murdered friend owned a farm where lies Old Town, the ruins of an 18th-century Shawnee Indian village. Cliff has loved the place since he was a boy. The Old Town site is historically significant, because the great war chief Tecumseh had lived there. A local home-building company wants to develop the property now that the owner is dead.
In honor Sammy and Old Town, Cliff fights back. This leads to more murders and attempted murders, an unexpected love affair, and amusing interactions between Cliff's crotchety nature and the police agenda. It isn't until Cliff is almost murdered himself that the police branch out to other possible suspects. Can Cliff beat the odds stacked against him and save Old Town?
A very good read, an unusual plot, and a peculiar hero. In and around the action, the book faithfully shows some of the societal ills eating away at the American Heartland. | | |
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