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CRIMSON TRAIL
by Dean Feldmeyer
Silver Dagger Press, August 2001
204 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 1570721769


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Methodist minister Dan Thompson has lived in Baird, Kentucky, for little more than a year, yet in that time he's made a name for himself as Constable Ray Hall's partner in sleuthing. Hall makes Dan's standing a bit more official when he awards him the title of Chaplain to the Three Mountain Township police force. In that capacity, Dan is quickly drawn into another investigation, this one dealing with marijuana plots scattered throughout the mountains ringing Baird.

DEA agent Owen Gardner has arrived in Baird with high hopes of resurrecting his fading career. Since a third of the marijuana sold in the U.S. comes from Appalachia, Gardner plans to impress his bosses by targeting "holler dopers", mountain folks who cultivate the weed as a cash crop. He soon butts heads with Constable Hall, a man who differentiates between drug traffickers and folks who plant a little weed in their gardens for their own personal use.

While Gardner wages a war on drugs in the neighboring hills, Hall and Dan investigate the mysterious death of a recluse preacher. Rev. Jonah Haycatcher, founder of a religious cult called The Children of the Lamb, supposedly died when he fell from his tractor and was mutilated by the machine. When a sharp-eyed undertaker spots a bullet hole in Haycatcher's neck, the "accident" turns into a case of murder.

The search for a killer is complicated by the discovery of a cache of white pills, the appearance of a biker gang, and the unexplainable destruction of highway road signs. Dan and Constable Hall are hard-pressed to come up with an answer for the crime wave hitting the little community of Baird, Kentucky.

CRIMSON CREEK is Feldmeyer's fourth Dan Thompson mystery. His first, VIPER QUARRY, was an Edgar nominee. I haven't read the author's previous books, but I found this one to be a real treat. Feldmeyer has a way of portraying a down-on-its-luck area of the country without degrading the folks who live there. Dan Thompson is a character with a past, but that past doesn't intrude on the story except as a reason for his assignment to Baird. Ray and May June Hall are a delightful change of pace from the usual husband-wife team seen in novels. Older and wiser than Dan, they're as comfortable together as an old pair of gloves. Their affectionate repartee lends a natural humor to the dialogue and, in some cases, steals the show from Dan and his girlfriend Naomi. As for the plot, it's as good as any and more believable than most.

There's a beauty in the wooded hills of southeastern Kentucky that belies the poverty of its small towns. Once thriving communities built around the mining industry, most of these hamlets are mere shadows of their former selves now that natural gas has replaced the black gold called coal. I've spent many a summer day in that area of the country, and to my mind Dean Feldmeyer captures the spirit of both the people and the place. If CRIMSON CREEK is any indication of the quality of the author's writing, I intend to go out and buy the first three books in the series.

Reviewed by Mary V. Welk, March 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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