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Sheriff Milt Kovak #13
Countdown
Arresting a Blanton was always going to be bad news, but things are about to get even worse for Sheriff Milt Kovak. "
Everyone in Prophesy County knows that you don t mess with the dim-witted, in-bred Blantons. So when Milt gets a call to say that Darrell Blanton has shot dead his wife, he s expecting a rough ride.
Arresting Darrell and putting him in the slammer may have been surprisingly easy, but things are about to get a whole lot worse. Eunice Blanton, Darrell s mama, takes a dim view of her son s arrest and decides to storm the Longbranch Inn where Milt s partner, Jean McDonnell is hosting a bachelorette party for Holly Humphries. With the women taken hostage, Eunice s terms are unsurprisingly simple: release her boy or a hostage gets shot every ten minutes. But there s a problem: Darrell has been found dead in his cell, with not a mark on him . . .
Everyone in Prophesy County knows that you don t mess with the dim-witted, in-bred Blantons. So when Milt gets a call to say that Darrell Blanton has shot dead his wife, he s expecting a rough ride.
Arresting Darrell and putting him in the slammer may have been surprisingly easy, but things are about to get a whole lot worse. Eunice Blanton, Darrell s mama, takes a dim view of her son s arrest and decides to storm the Longbranch Inn where Milt s partner, Jean McDonnell is hosting a bachelorette party for Holly Humphries. With the women taken hostage, Eunice s terms are unsurprisingly simple: release her boy or a hostage gets shot every ten minutes. But there s a problem: Darrell has been found dead in his cell, with not a mark on him . . .
- GenresMystery
208 pages, Library Binding
First published September 1, 2014
4 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Susan Rogers Cooper
35 books27 followersSusan Rogers Cooper is an American mystery novelist. A self-proclaimed "half fifth generation Texan; half Yankee", she sets her novels in Texas (the E.J. Pugh and Kimmey Kruse novels) and in Oklahoma (the Sheriff Milt Kovak novels). She is currently living in Central Texas, coming up with fresh new ways to get her characters into trouble.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 13, 2017
We guess we need to give up after at least a couple of decades of reading Susan Rogers Cooper, including every book of her three mystery series (of which the Kimmey Kruse set is now quite obscure), by concluding that the author herself is becoming somewhat obscure. Her last several EJ Pugh (busybody amateur sleuth) novels have bordered on dreadful, and even our favorite set about Sheriff Milt Kovak, “Countdown” being the 13th and latest, have lost much of the earlier pizzazz that entertained. Kovak is a small-town low-profile Oklahoma sheriff who eventually solves what few serious crimes pass his way, but with limited actual detective work.
In the plot, a member of the apparently completely in-bred Blanton clan has killed his relative-wife, and after only a few hour’s in Kovak’s jail, turns up dead there himself. Meanwhile, the dead man’s mother has taken a bachelorette party hostage – the attendees include Kovak’s psychologist wife Jean, one of his deputies, and a couple of others close to home. Mom doesn’t even know her son is dead yet, and has threatened to start wasting the hostages if Kovak doesn’t let him out of jail since the murder was an “accident.” One of her other sons does kill an old friend of Jean’s from “up North”, who was behaving badly since arriving in town, partially to just shut her up. So we have a couple of messes on our hands.
With such a limited scope of people in and out of the jail, Kovak eventually closes in on the murder, the hostages mostly get away; but Jean insists on accompanying her friend’s body back North where what she really wants to do is pry into why her friend was so promiscuous as a young adult, and so rude to everybody since. That distraction hardly added to the entertainment value of a relatively lackluster tale.
We’ve noticed our local library has stopped carrying these novels – maybe poor circulation of same is the best indicator of the author’s waning popularity. We almost hate to agree.
In the plot, a member of the apparently completely in-bred Blanton clan has killed his relative-wife, and after only a few hour’s in Kovak’s jail, turns up dead there himself. Meanwhile, the dead man’s mother has taken a bachelorette party hostage – the attendees include Kovak’s psychologist wife Jean, one of his deputies, and a couple of others close to home. Mom doesn’t even know her son is dead yet, and has threatened to start wasting the hostages if Kovak doesn’t let him out of jail since the murder was an “accident.” One of her other sons does kill an old friend of Jean’s from “up North”, who was behaving badly since arriving in town, partially to just shut her up. So we have a couple of messes on our hands.
With such a limited scope of people in and out of the jail, Kovak eventually closes in on the murder, the hostages mostly get away; but Jean insists on accompanying her friend’s body back North where what she really wants to do is pry into why her friend was so promiscuous as a young adult, and so rude to everybody since. That distraction hardly added to the entertainment value of a relatively lackluster tale.
We’ve noticed our local library has stopped carrying these novels – maybe poor circulation of same is the best indicator of the author’s waning popularity. We almost hate to agree.
December 29, 2014
Maybe I'm reading too much? Or have I just matured in my desired parameters for good reading?
I picked this one off the shelf at the library, remembered that I'd read this author before and thought I'd liked her well enough so I thought I'd give this one a try. I felt she wrote this from a list:
murder? check
homosexuality? check
innocent girls pimped out for sex? check
far too much offensive language? check
physically challenged (it used to be ok to say handicapped) heroine? check
unwed mothers? check
deranged (unrepentant and happy to be stupid people doing stupid things) characters? check
almost a complete lack of character development? check
I'm frankly disappointed in myself for reading it clear through to the end. My time would have been better spent reading something else. And I've made a mental note to myself - do not read this author again.
I picked this one off the shelf at the library, remembered that I'd read this author before and thought I'd liked her well enough so I thought I'd give this one a try. I felt she wrote this from a list:
murder? check
homosexuality? check
innocent girls pimped out for sex? check
far too much offensive language? check
physically challenged (it used to be ok to say handicapped) heroine? check
unwed mothers? check
deranged (unrepentant and happy to be stupid people doing stupid things) characters? check
almost a complete lack of character development? check
I'm frankly disappointed in myself for reading it clear through to the end. My time would have been better spent reading something else. And I've made a mental note to myself - do not read this author again.
September 2, 2014
Sheriff Milt Kovak's wife Jean is holding a bachlorette party for one of his office staff when a distraught mother appears, heavily armed. Milt has arrested her son for killing his wife ("just an accident," Eunice Blanton is sure), so she plans to kill a hostage every ten minutes until her son is released. Milt must keep his deputies calm (all their wives and girlfriends are at the party), while he's feeling none too calm himself. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to his parents, 11-year-old John Kovak is in the path of a killer tornado. At halftime, the initial threat is over, but both Milt and Jean realize that they have separate mysteries to solve. Rapidly shifting points of view rachet up the suspense.
October 17, 2014
A real fast read since it definitely is page turner to find out how the various intertwined plots turn out!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews