The Late Town Cop

While Depression-era South Dakota may seem an unlikely setting for a mystery series, Adams has done well there, earning the 1993 Shamus Award for The Man Who Was Taller Than God. His lightning rod for trouble is Carl Wilcox who, in his fifth appearance here, does a friend a favor by taking over the job of Lou Dupree, the murdered police officer in the town of Mustard. Adams's spare prose and artful characterizations bring to life the inhabitants of the small community where long-festering frustrations and passions have erupted. Dupree, a high-school athletic hero turned bitter WWI veteran, was roundly hated by the time his body was found neatly chopped up in his bed. Among those who don't miss him are the wife who threw him out, his abused teenage son, various used and rejected women, cuckolded husbands and humiliated rivals. Wilcox exercises an edgy humor, his eye for beauty and a willingness to stick his nose into everyone's business as he probes alibis and motives. Adams's quietly effective storytelling is a refreshing antidote to the verbiage of many bloated bestsellers. (Dec.)