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DEATH OF A HOOSIER SCHOOLMASTER
by Marlis Day
SterlingHouse Publisher, September 2002
190 pages
$11.95
ISBN: 1563152886


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Junior high school teacher Margo Brown and her educator husband are enjoying their summer vacation. Early on, digging in their garden, they find a rusty gun. While talking to her father-in-law, Margo discovers that Gus Steiner, who had once owned their property as well as many other acres in the area, had been murdered some fifty years before. He had not been killed at the site of their garden, but possibly the murderer could have tried to hide the gun there. Margo decides then and there that she must investigate that murder. The investigation leads her to some disturbing knowledge about the Steiner family.

This book is quite well-written. There are almost lyrical descriptions of nature, family memories, the town, and the people in the town. You can almost hear the music in the background. The setting is a very small town in Indiana, a town which harbors lives simple indeed by the standards of those who live in larger cities. Reading this book makes one almost nostalgic for a much simpler period of time.

Some will feel that the simple wholesome life described in this book is a fantasy world, a world which simply no longer exists, while others will enjoy their time spent in this more innocent society. How the reader reacts to this assertion will probably determine how she feel about the book. I found the immersion in a world far different from mine enjoyable and attractive.

The characters that people this book are intriguing as well. There are attractive word pictures of various members of the community and we get to know them in all their idiosyncrasies and oddities. They seem unique and unparalleled, and this makes the book more interesting and enjoyable. We all know people who are characters and behind whose back people often gossip. The hearsay in this community is usually kind and gentle, but the quaint characters are certainly present.

Mystery purists may find it frustrating that Margo, who tells the story, spends so much of her time describing the daily rounds of life, the dinner that she and Dew are cooking, the vacation that they take, the Fourth of July barbecue. While these descriptions add to the charm of the book, they also slow down the action. Again, how the reader feels will depend upon how she reacts to stories that pleasantly meander rather than go straight for the mystery and the solution.

The voice of the narrator is certainly quite pleasant. Her descriptions are almost music in words, her tone is often gently self-deprecatory, and she admits to faults and shortcomings, even as she is gently laughing at herself.

The ending, I felt, was almost anticlimactic. The solution to the fifty-year old mystery did not come as a great surprise to me, although it is well worked out and clearly delineated.

This book is a paean to the simple, small town Midwestern life. If there was a murder fifty years ago, it was a rarity in the town and Margo, while putting herself in some jeopardy, finds it pleasant to spend part of her summer researching the past and interviewing people who ultimately provide her with the information she needs to discover the solution. I found this a very pleasant book.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, February 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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