After an eight-year hiatus, smalltown (Kirkville, N.Y.) newsman/sleuth/house-restorer Elias "Hack" Hackshaw (The Painted Lady, etc.) makes a welcome fourth appearance. Hack's weekly column, "Ramblings," and his position as editor-in-chief, guarantee that he will have plenty of detractors as well as allies. And the upstate tri-town area covered by the Triton Advertiser
is small enough, remote enough and isolated enough to provide cover for plenty of unusual characters from the county's chief criminal investigator, Mel Stoneman, sworn enemy of a local clan of misfits. Wilcox spins an entertaining yarn of murder and mayhem built around the death of a small-time grifter and the involvement of gypsies, Native Americans and others with Hack caught in the middle. The murder of con man Edgar "Slow Eddie" Williamson catapults Hack into trouble when Stoneman concludes he's involved. Further complications ensue when Stavo, head of a gypsy band, conscripts Hack to find his runaway daughter, Bimbo Wanka. Hack's ambitious plan to catch the killer, get the gypsies off his case and leave Stoneman with egg on his face naturally hits a few snags. But the rough spots provide plenty of humor as Hack combines luck and some inspired improvisations to survive. With a credible plot and eccentric characters that adroitly avoid being mere caricatures, Wilcox offers a semi-cozy mystery—uncloying, clever and far from brutal. (POD)
FYI:Mystery Writers of America and iUniverse have created this POD imprint as an alternative for MWA members, many of whom can no longer get their work published by the more commercial houses.
PW plans to review other mystery titles in this program on a regular basis.
