The Twenty-Acre Plot: A Hackshaw Mystery

by Stephen F. Wilcox

In his inaugural adventure, Elias Hackshaw, the wry and irascible editor of a small-town upstate New York weekly newspaper, finds himself reluctantly investigating the death of a local farmer. Hack's half-hearted snooping soon leads him to unscrupulous land developers, then to an eccentric millionaire, angry Indians, and, finally, a scheme (his own) to use old Iroquois artifacts to "salt¿ an archeological dig-but only as a way to lure the killer out into the open, he assures us. Any personal gain on Hackshaw's part is, ahem, strictly serendipitous.

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2001

Reviews

[Nicholas George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good mystery with an interesting protagonist (a somewhat flawed but well-intentioned small-town newspaperman) and setting (upstate New York). The clues to the killer could have been laid a bit more deftly, but that's a typical shortcoming for most mysteries these days.