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Velvet by Alec Kalla and M.J. Sullivan |
| (Worldwide, $5.99, NV) ISBN 0-373-26526-3 |
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| Hank Eston is awakened one morning by ex-girlfriend Sue Fenton who has found her new boyfriend Bill dead on her couch. Hank, who is the caretaker of his uncle’s Rocky Mountain ranch, likes keeping to himself and would really rather not be bothered, yet he drives to Sue’s house where he is accosted by the local sheriff’s department, who find it more than a bit odd that the first phone call Sue made was to Hank.
The original cause of death is listed as a heart attack, but some odd bruises and the fact that Bill was a relatively healthy young man makes the sheriff suspicious. Sue claims that Bill got the bruises the night before when he told his trucking company he no longer wanted to work for them. Though this sounds extreme to Hank, his initial inclination is to stay out of things. When the local constabulary begins to harass him, however, he decides to take matters into his own hands.
Hank soon learns that Bill was involved in an illegal poaching operation, something that Hank is sure would be the perfect motive for murder. Yet there is something in Sue’s story that makes Hank feel she is leaving something out and that there is something right before his eyes that he is missing, something that might just end up with Hank’s being killed as well. The characters in Velvet are not sympathetic, nor are their motives for what they do easy to understand. Sue’s behavior is just plain hinky most of the time, though the behavior is often attributed to New Age nonsense (in Hank’s opinion) and for someone who wishes to e left alone, Hank spends a lot of time trying to learn what happened to Bill after the Sheriff starts harassing him, even though as he keeps saying, he has nothing to hide. Though the poaching and trucking operation should have offered many more suspects and motives, few are proffered and while the culprit is believable, the motives are hard to believe and seem last minute additions. Fans of mysteries with a rural western flavor will find a lot of atmosphere but may find much of the plot disappointing and may come away with a sense of disbelief that no one figured all this out sooner.
--Jennifer Monahan Winberry |
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