Gunn fashions a yarn as taut as a short story with all the tension of a clenched fist in her fifth Jake Hines police procedural, after last year's superb Six-Pound Walleye. It's impossible to exaggerate her narrative skill. A bizarre crime—two dead men turn up stuffed into a garbage barrel, both brutally beaten and one with a wad of cash stuck in his mouth—launches the chief of detectives of the Rutherford, Minn., PD on an investigation that gets only more confusing. Throughout, the reader can't help feeling that Jake and his colleagues will never be able to crack this case, and in fact, the author doesn't dot the last i
until the final page. Gunn's concept of the police as an efficient team, each member supplying a piece of the puzzle, helps make this a superior series. In his role as narrator Jake naturally assumes center stage, but he's no Herculean mastermind who figures everything out with his little gray cells. Rather, he's a born leader whose will to solve a case supplies the momentum for his people. Down to earth, haunted by a very credible past, Jake is as real as the chilly Minnesota world around him. Providing domestic interest is his lover, Trudy Hanson, with whom he's bought a farm halfway between their jobs in different cities. The conflicts produced by the financial strain of a mortgage and property repairs serve to add to Trudy and Jake's humanity. Gunn just keeps getting better with each new installment in the series. Agent, Jane Chelius. (June 12)
Forecast:Gunn could benefit from some blurbs from big-name writers in the field, though with Walker soon to close down its mystery line, she may have to wait until a new publisher is willing to give this series the major promotional push it deserves.
