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BLOOD COUNTRY
by Mary Logue
Walker & Co., October 1999
256 pages
$out of print
ISBN: 0802733395


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Claire Watkins is a damaged ex-Minneapolis police detective. She's also the protagonist of Mary Logue's new crime novel, following Red Lake of The Heart and Still Explosion.

In Blood Country Watkins and her partner are moving toward arresting members of a major drug ring when Claire's husband, Steve, becomes the victim of what appears to be a hit-and-run accident. Shocked and desolate, Watkins abruptly resigns from the department, takes her young daughter, Meg, and flees to the small Wisconsin town of Fort Antoine. To support herself and provide a protective environment for Meg, Claire joins the county sheriff's department which hasn't seen a murder in at least a generation.

Then, Claire's neighbor is found face down in his garden. Greed has raised its ugly head, generating conflict over a real estate development. Citizens are split over maintaining traditional values, and the prospect of substantial new money. Logue sets a consistent pace, entwining the major plot elements with other developments in a pleasing manner and, through shifting points of view and realistic action, continually raises the feeling of mystery and danger.

Logue's background as a successful poet shows in her narrative style which flirts with free verse, providing a meter of starts and pauses. One of this novel's strengths is its thoughtful incompleteness. The main plot and some subplots are carefully resolved by the end, but other questions posed by characters to themselves and others are left unanswered. It's an invitation to the reader to speculate about their future.

The reviewer is the author of

INNER PASSAGES and

A SUPERIOR MYSTERY

http://www.Minnesotacrimewave.org/

Reviewed by Carl Brookins, March 2003

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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