Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "murder-mystery"

The Sasquatch Murder (A Love Story)

Jeffrey Viles
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Beaver's Pond Press; 1 edition (July 25, 2017)
ISBN-10: 1592987699
ISBN-13: 978-1592987696
https://www.amazon.com/Sasquatch-Murd...

Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

“At the beginning of beginnings there was only ∞, which was darkness multiplied by nothingness. The darkness was eternal and unchallenged until ∞ divided
nothingness by zero. A sound not unlike a faint brass trumpet note pierced the void, and light issued forth. Darkness could not subdue the light. Whatever
was not darkness was light. The future had a future. Within the light were particles that contained excitable atoms held together in an electron cloud.”

Talk about moving from the general to the specific! The above paragraph, the first in the “Prologue” to The Sasquatch Murder suggests an epic with a cosmic scope is underway.

Nope. Instead, after a crunched history of the origins of the universe through the early varieties of humankind, we end up in a rainstorm in a forest where Jake Holly and his horse try to escape the downpour. There, Jake accidently fires his rifle when he’s startled by a strange couple of beasts copulating on the forest floor. In short order, Jake learns he’s killed a female Sasquatch and wounded her mate.

Trying to do the right thing, Jake takes the corpse to his hometown of Aurora, Washington where a number of subplots begin. For one, we meet Jessica, Jake’s lawyer girlfriend who is 15 years his junior. She’s very supportive. We meet her prosecuting attorney father who dislikes their relationship and quickly has Jake arrested for murder.

Strangely, a local boy sees Jake, Jessica, and a local mortician take the corpse into a funeral home and begins to blog about it. Even more strangely, journalists from as far away as India and Japan read the boy’s blog and come running to track down the story. On top of that, the president of the U.S. gets wind of the story and calls the prosecuting attorney and asks him to suppress the story in the name of national security. The president sends a special unit called the PNG (Paranormal Group) to Aurora to put a lid on the situation.

Meanwhile, many of the townspeople have heard about the body in the morgue and want a look at it. After all, confirmation that Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, exists would be something to put Aurora on the map. And all this happens in just a day or so of the killing.

In addition to all these balls in the air, author Jeffrey Viles tosses in more digressions, character sketches, and unrelated scenes than I’ve ever seen in one book. Throw in the actions of the natural world from Elminio to clouds of volcanic ash and smoke belched out from Mount St. Helen’s to a posse of 16 angry Sasquatch who, for the first time, gather together and march into a human town through a thick fog to reclaim the body of one of their own.

Despite the padding, the touching of so many bases, and improbable plot twists, there’s much in The Sasquatch Murder to attract an audience. After the “Prologue” and very descriptive first chapter, the story is told with an engaging, personable style. Viles fleshes out some very likeable characters, especially Jake and Jessica whose romance is the “love story” in the book’s sub-title.

This one sure looks like a stand-alone yarn with no likely sequels. It’s a family-friendly story, appropriate for a YA readership.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Jan. 18, 2018 at:
http://1clickurls.com/sXabiJ2

Flash Friends: A Perry County Novel
Dennis Royer
Paperback: 334 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 23, 2017)
ISBN-10: 1547166517
ISBN-13: 978-1547166510
https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Friends-...


Reviewed by: Dr. Wesley Britton


I was delighted to meet author Dennis Royer at a local writers’ conference this August. I was intrigued to hear his description of his latest Perry County novel, Flash Friends, as that’s the locale where my stepson and my grandson live. I was curious to hear that one of his main characters is blind. So am I.

With these connections in mind, I bought one copy of the book for my grandson and asked Dennis to send me an e-book version so I could write this review.

In short order, I was feeling mixed messages, to mangle one usually tried and true metaphor. In many ways, the character of the blind twenty-two-year-old blind character, Annalise DaVinci, was very believable. Her resentment of anyone or anything that frustrated her proud independence is something I’ve seen many, many times. On the other hand, I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t using a white cane, especially as she was living out in the boondocks and apparently taking long walks in the country. Without a cane?

True, Royer tells us Annalise doesn’t use her cane to look less conspicuous. As the story progresses, we get more and more clues about Annalise’s past from which she is running and hiding. Still, not using a cane, or guide dog and just relying on the apps in her cell phone, I can promise you, is dumb. And dangerous.

The other main character is Bo Camp, a rookie volunteer firefighter who lives on a dairy farm with his parents. They’re neighbors to the Johnsons, who have leased a duplex to Annalise. Annalise is the first person to learn a massive fire is devouring the Johnson house, and Bo is the first person to arrive on the scene to help out.

In short order, fire companies from all over the region descend on the blaze and one firefighter dies of a heart attack at the scene. This leads to a number of investigations of the incident where various law enforcement agencies view Bo, Annalise, and the Johnsons with suspicion. Why? And what is Annalise afraid of? Who is she hiding from?

As the story progresses, I realized Royer is extremely good with character development, offering very believable emotions, motivations, and actions by all his leading and supporting characters. He’s also very good at distributing clues and foreshadowings of several mysteries he’s developing. I was more than surprised by the final third of the book where most readers who know this area will be amazed to see Perry County in this light.

I also realized Flash Friends is an ideal YA novel, and likely too the rest of his Perry County stories. The rural setting is vividly sketched, especially the Camp dairy farm where Bo’s father is concerned his son won’t follow in his footsteps into the family business. The area described around West Perry County, not surprisingly, is clearly drawn from the author’s personal experience. On the other hand, I know Mechanicsburg doesn’t have a store selling adaptive technology for the disabled and there’s no such thing as a Dauphin County School for the Blind.

Of course, the book is fiction so poking holes into the verisimilitude regarding the Central Pennsylvania blind community isn’t really fair, especially as the reader would have to really have specific knowledge to know about such details. Right now, I’m eager to find out what my grandson thinks of the book. I’m also curious to find out what readers think who know little or nothing about this area. Let me know—

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Aug. 15, 2018:
https://waa.ai/ayJX

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