Publisher's Weekly Review
Blue Deer, Mont., cradled between the Absaroka and the aptly named Crazy mountain ranges, makes a fine setting for this debut mystery that is by turns side-splitting and dark. Early one Sunday morning, screenwriter George Blackwater types a script idea on his PC that smacks of autobiographical, and hungover, self-absorption: ``Crazy writer, victim of tragic error of youth, is dispossessed by soulless brother and bitch mother, embittered by fat wife.'' Moments later, a sniper's bullets waste George's monitor-and George. Enter Sheriff Jules Clement, whose first suspect is George's unlovable, oft-betrayed wife. But she disappears, and, by the time Jules finds her, is dead. Other suspects include George's brother, also a screenwriter and skilled seducer, whose hatred for George was generously reciprocated. A third party despises them both. As the body count rises, Jules, whose story this really is, contemplates the death of his father, also a sheriff, in the line of duty 20 years before and learns that George's high-school sweetheart died in a suspicious accident around that same time. Another corpse is found before the mystery's complicated, none-too-startling finale. Jules may often seem more surly than convivial, but that's a reasonable response to the doings in Blue Deer, a town harboring enough venality for more Jules Clement mysteries. Author tour. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
First novelist Harrison offers a microcosm set in Blue Deer, Montana, where a murder attempt shatters the usual calm. Jules Clement, archeologist-turned-sheriff, eyes the crime scene and then questions the wounded victim‘philandering, alcoholic screenwriter George Blackwater. The Northern Exposure-like list of suspects includes his wild-eyed wife, his best-selling author brother, and a peevish ex-employee. When Jules subsequently finds the wife's body, the list grows longer. Harrison's stylistic prose, studded with spots of color and embellished by sometimes humorous characterization, lacks consistency and turns sluggish. For the persistent reader. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.