An Unfortunate Prairie Occurance: A Mystery

Given center stage in Harrison's latest Jules Clement tale (The Edge of the Crazies; Going Local) is the poor behavior of many of the leading families of Blue Deer, Mont. That many of these people, including Sheriff Clement, are also related only adds to the complexity of their weird behavior. As the fall hunting season begins, Clement, skirting a drinking problem and losing the fight to rein in his libidinous responses to officer Caroline Fair, encounters a number of crimes old and new, many of which will turn out to be connected and most of which will be resolved. A young mother who is brutally raped in her home is the third victim of similar attacks; a skeleton is unearthed on an island in the Yellowstone River; a hotel cook dives into the same river and does not surface; a convicted killer finally agrees to show where the body is buried. Central to the action is Clement's effort to identify the skeleton, determined to be that of a young man who was shot sometime in the late 1930s. The island then belonged Clement's uncle, a wealthy landowner now in his 70s. Other Blue Deer elders, including the bilious local judge, a farmer who soon dies in an apparent suicide and a chorus of sharp-tongued white-haired women, mix with the Sheriff's generation in attempts to clarify--and obfuscate--how crimes of the past breed those in the present. Readers who take the trouble to track this cast and their assorted relationships will be amply rewarded for their attention: Harrison writes with humor, intelligence and heart. Reprint rights to St. Martin's. (Jan.)