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As in Harrison's first mystery, last year's acclaimed The Edge of the Crazies, Sheriff Clement must contend with small town politics, old feuds and resentments, and a loony assortment of old-timers and transplants. This time he encounters ex-lovers, rodeo clowns, a wife-beater, a big-shot rancher, and a semi-retired Hollywood movie producer. All are in search of the Big Sky cure for lifelong anxiety. All have their own special agendas. Most are their own worst enemies.
Minor clues to the campground murders trickle in, while a flood of bad behavior turns Blue Deer into a free-for-all zone. Except for Jules's friends, caterer Alice Wahlgren and newspaper reporter Peter Johansen, every character is a suspect. All of the classic motives could apply: jealousy, greed, revenge, spite, ego, and hatred. There is also a question of fraudulent mining claims. Meanwhile, the town requires order. Jules must arrest or, in one case, sucker-punch, practically everyone in sight for infractions unrelated (or perhaps not) to the murders at hand.
To compound the heated ugliness, a woman is killed in a freak rodeo mishap. She also was a partner in the ecologically sensitive Dragonfly land development project. Was her death an accident or another murder? The son of a former sheriff killed on the job, Clement left Blue Deer for his education and overseas travel. In that sense he is part local, part newcomer, but always the law. After several weeks of sifting sparse murder evidence, Jules has fewer clues than suspects. He does not escape the wave of misadventure. Thanks to a visiting documentary photographer, the intelligent and seductive Diane Meek, Jules can't get a good night's sleep. No wonder he can't make sense of the mess. The only workable approach is to search first for a motive, calculate plausible scenarios, then go backward to determine the identity of the murderer. That angle, too, has its built-in roadblocks.
In Going Local, Harrison balances a credible story with a rolling sense of the bizarre. She takes on everything from memorial services to a fiasco-bent Fourth of July parade, plus the gruesome details of death and deceit. There is a touch of cynicism-not unlike that of Jamie's novelist father, Jim Harrison-but also a strong allegiance to genuine emotions and collisions of legitimate viewpoints. With a conclusion that surprises but does not cheat the reader, Going Local is a fine successor to last year's promising debut, and a sure sign that Jamie Harrison's career will be taking mystery fans for a long and entertaining ride.
Writer and photographer Tom Corcoran lives in Lakeland, Florida.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.