Blue Chipper: A Morgan Hunt Novel

Introduced in Sweetwater Ranch, excon Morgan Hunt is a carpenter and occasional PI in the tranquil backwoods of the Florida panhandle, where he lives a kind of existential L. L. Bean dream, sipping good booze, loving a good woman, refurbishing his remote 20-room farmhouse and pondering his cheekered career. He and his lawyer friend Nat Semmes take on the case of drug dealer Jackson Coleman, who is charged with the murder of another druggie; if convicted, Coleman will surely face the death penalty. Jackson's younger brother William is a high-school basketball star being courted by a gaggle of scouts, one of whom suggests that if William signs on for the state university, the charges against Jackson might be reduced. Although some suspense is lost as readers learn early on that the accused is as much victim as killer, Norman susains interest by fine-tuning the tender machismo and prison-hardened angst of his likable hero. Striking an uneasy balance between action and thought as he dreams of an idyllic future and reflects on a difficult past, Hunt is an idiosyncratic and welcome new series hero. (Nov.)