Corkscrew

Reid Bennett #5

by Ted Wood

While fending off a gang of surly bikers, Murphy's Harbour policeman Reid Bennett and his sidekick, superdog Sam, investigate the drowning of a teenage boy whose camera turns out some very interesting photographs.

Genres: Mystery

245 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1979

About the author

Born Edward John Wood in Shoreham, Sussex, England, he lived in London until the outbreak of the Second World War. Enforced relocation to rural Worcestershire, which left him with a lifelong love of the countryside, was followed by service in RAF Coastal Command. In 1954 he immigrated to Canada, where he was a policeman in Toronto for three years. In 1957 he joined MacLaren Advertising as a copywriter, eventually becoming a creative director. He now lives in Whitby, Ontario.

While employment in law enforcement and advertising provided food and shelter for his growing family, Wood found time to write and sell short stories to Canadian and American magazines and to write television plays; he also collaborated on the musical comedy Mister Scrooge, which was produced in Toronto and on cbc television. In 1974 he published a collection of Chekhovian short stories, Somebody Else's Summer.

His Dead in the Water (1984) won the Scribner's Crime Novel Award, and publication in the USA and Canada. The book featured a small-town policeman, Reid Bennett, and his dog Sam—the entire law enforcement needs of Murphy's Harbour, a fictional resort community in the Muskoka region of Ontario. Bennett's and Sam's popularity was enough to extend the series though Murder on Ice (1984) to its current tenth title, A Clean Kill (1995), and to have the books also published in England and in many translations. A second series featuring a peripatetic Toronto-based bodyguard, John Locke, has thus far extended to three titles: Hammerlocke (1986), Lockestep (1987) and Timelocke (1991).

Source: Ted Wood Biography - (b. 1931), Mister Scrooge, Somebody else's summer, Dead in the water

Librarian Note: The John Locke series is published under the pseudonym Jack Barnao.

Reviews

[Garth Mailman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reid Bennet is the single cop in Murphy’s Harbour, a fictitious resort town on the Trent Severn in Ontario’s Cottage Counrty. This is number 5 in a ten-book series. In this outing he is dealing with a biker gang and the murder of a 13-year-old amateur photographer. And the hits keep on coming. He’s no angel but most angels don’t go into law enforcement. His deputy is the four-footed German Shepherd Sam.

This turns into a double-homicide/kidnapping suspense/thriller. At play are favourite front-line law enforcement hobby horses:

civilians who refuse to get involved.
bad guys who know how to play the system.
by the book superiors who make things unnecessarily complicated--after all when union workers want to protest the work to rule.
biker gangs.
lawyers

[Kevintipple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fifth in the series, Corkscrew opens with Reid Bennet at home doing his job as Chief of Police in Murphy’s Harbour. Biker gangs have been a problem before in Toronto and a biker gang is about to be an issue again. This time it is the “Devil’s Brigade” and they are looking for their own kind of fun in the resort town of Murphy’s Harbour.

He has to keep things peaceful as he is a police force of one plus his dog, Sam. With reinforcements from the Ontario Provincial Police a long ways away, he has to keep things on as an even keel as possible. For the time being, their leader who goes by the name of “Russ” and Chief Bennett have worked out an understanding and uneasy truce exists. It actually helped a bit that Russ knew what had happened in Toronto so he has some grudging respect for Reid.

While the uneasy truce holds, Reid is able to focus on a bigger issue of a missing thirteen year old boy. Kennie Spenser went off with his expensive Nikon camera to take pictures and never came back. There has been no sign of him, the boy’s Mom is very upset and worried, and the boy’s drunk stepfather is of no help at all. Not only do the stepfather and the missing boy have a history, apparently the stepdad has also been physically violent with the wife. Clearly, the stepdad is a suspect in the teen disappearance, but he isn’t the only one.

As in earlier books in the series, plenty is going on in Corkscrew by Ted Wood. Not only do we learn a little more backstory on Reid, we see the beginnings of a new romance for him. That additional depth and evolution of the character does not get in the way of the action and the mysteries at work in Corkscrew. Another very good tale in a very good series.


Corkscrew
Ted Wood
Charles Scribner’s Sons
1986
ISBN# 0-684-18568-7
Hardback (also available in paperback and digital formats)
233 Pages



Material supplied by the good folks of the Dallas Public Library.



Kevin R. Tipple ©2018

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wood's police detective novel was a nice easy quick read. As a former photographer I was drawn in by the Nikon. However the dog Sam's character is pretty one-dimensional, and repeated references to how confining following proper procedures can be gets old. But the police work parts do ring true.

I'd give this book 2.5 stars if GR allowed it. It's three because the story and action kept me reading to the end.

[Cyndy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good cop series.

It's a little dated but very intense with complicated twist. Reid Bennett is one tough cop in a small town with a lot of action. Good series.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated, and not in a good way. Has more of a feel of a '70s or '60s novel than the '80s. Mostly cliched, macho kind of Dirty Harry plot.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reid and his well-trained attack dog Sam. A one-man police force in small town Murphy's Harbour outside Toronto. A very good series.

[Faye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good mystery. A motorcycle gang has appeared in a small harbor town in Canada. At the same time, a 13 year old boy disappears. Characterization is very good and the suspense is well-done and doesn't come off as trite as some mysteries can do. If you like Stuart Woods, you might like this author as well. Actually, you might like Ted Wood better. Other than Stuart Woods' first book Chiefs (which I think is his best and only great one), none of the rest of his books measure up to Ted Wood's.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this quite a bit and I'm not really much of a reader of standard mysteries. Those who do like mysteries will probably like this a lot. Good character and interesting set up. Maybe 3 and a half stars.