This book is one of two that I bought by this local author in Heber Springs, Arkansas last year.
I have to say that I am not sure that I have read a book that more closely matches an episode of a television cop show than this one. Inside the front material, it says it’s a novel featuring Lt. Al Stimpson, but apparently it never evolved into a series.
The book begins with the prologue of how the killer came to be the killer: His abusive mother kept his father and his siblings in line until the father died, whereupon the mother tried to assert dominance, but the older brothers left, leaving the future killer and his younger sister. His mother begins an incestuous relationship with him and hates on the daughter who is young as she is no longer. When the mother kills the daughter, the son kills the mother and cuts off her finger. Which becomes his MO when he starts killing low class women after being triggered by a mother/son porn (probably porno to the author). I’m not spoiling the surprise for you; like a television program, it’s all up front, and the real tension is how the police will find the fellow.
This is not a piss on Missouri book or even a piss on Arkansas book as the original crime takes place in Oklahoma and other crimes take place down south which is rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina (even though it was published in 2020, the book is set years earlier).
So, for the cops, we have a deputy in Oklahoma who just recently discovered the mother’s and sister’s bodies when someone was building on the abandoned mobile home site. She’s a hire for political reasons, but she doggedly pursues leads when the sheriff can’t be arsed. We have Lietenant Stimpson and his partner: he is white, and she is black, and some are surprised they work so well together (the book says in pretty much those words). And we have a couple other ciphers of characters, such as a stock FBI profiler who makes an appearance or two to say stock FBI profiler things. Most of the other characters are just names and occupations, and many of the scenes in the book are not actual investigations, but instead meetings and reports of investigations. Like you might see on a television program with a small location budget.
I mean, the writing is pretty good, and the book moves along quickly (and it’s only a bit over 130 pages). So if you’re in the mood for something like this–something with the heft of a 21st century equivalent of men’s adventure paperbacks–I guess it could be your thing. But it’s ultimately not mine. I was going to pick up the other Schaffer book right away to complete my tour of her work, but I decided against it at this time. It is one of the “series” where “series” means a couple of books with the same investigators, but its 200+ length daunted me. So I’ll save it for another day.
