The
Price of Malice
A
Joe Gunther Mystery
Archer
Mayor
St.
Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-312-38192-1 (0312381921)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38192-9 (9780312381929)
Publication Date: September 2009
List Price: $24.99
Synopsis (from
the publisher): Wayne Castine was found brutally murdered and the
murderer remains at large. Castine, a suspected child predator, was
killed in Brattleboro where he was involved with a tangled network of
an extended family living in a local trailer park. Any member of the
clan would have had the opportunity to kill him, and, as he was
involved with both the mother and her 12 year old daughter, reason to
commit the murder. At the same time, Joe Gunther has learned that his
girlfriend Lyn Silva’s fisherman father and brother, believed
lost at sea off the coast of Maine, might have actually been murdered.
Without enough solid information to warrant law enforce ment
involvement, Lyn returns to Maine to try and investigate
Gunther’s findings. Gunther periodically puts his on-going
murder investigation on hold -- irritating his colleagues and angering
his bosses -- to go and help Lyn in Maine. It appears increasingly
possible that her father and brother weren’t the good guys
that Lyn always believed them to be and that they might have been
involved with vicious smugglers who murdered them -- and might do the
same to Lyn if she keeps pushing.
Torn between his conscience and his heart, a murder investigation and a
personal search for the truth, Gunther finds that betrayal and loyalty
are often a matter of viewpoint.
Review:
Vermont Bureau of Investigation agent Joe Gunther is called in to
investigate the brutal murder of a suspected child predator, while also
helping his girlfriend deal with her grief over the deaths of her
father and brother, in The Price of
Malice,
the 20th mystery in this series by Archer Mayor.
The murder of Wayne Castine comes as little surprise to the authorities
in Brattleboro. Though he was suspected of being a child predator, and
he had a long juvenile record, there was never enough evidence to
arrest him as an adult. "It looks like he learned not to get caught
after he reached maturity," one of Joe's team tells him. But Joe's
investigation of the murder suggests there may be more to the case than
the police originally thought. Meanwhile, Lyn Silva, owner of a local
bar and Joe's girlfriend, has returned to Boston to care for her ill
mother, who has been virtually catatonic since her husband and son,
Lyn's father and brother, were lost at sea. In an unexpected twist,
however, their boat has been found, housed and undamaged (though
repainted) on a private island near the Canadian border. How it got
there, however, remains a mystery.
Many mysteries frequently have substantial subplots that play out in
tandem with the main story, but there seems to be a recent trend in
series mysteries to combine two, generally unrelated principal plots,
into a single novel; The Price of
Malice
is an example of this type of book. It's almost as if the author is
unsure that one plotline can be sufficiently developed into a
full-length novel and thus adds a second one to take up the slack. The
result is often disjointed, as it is here. Joe's colleagues are a
little miffed that he's spending so much time and effort on what is
clearly a personal matter while there's a murder to be solved, and that
reaction extends, to some degree, to the reader as well. It is somewhat
ironic, then, that the storyline involving Lyn is the more interesting
of the two presented, but the least challenging for Joe. Still, as is
typical of the series, The Price of
Malice
is well written with interesting characters, but the concept of
merging, or interweaving, what are essentially two independent novellas
into one cohesive novel is one that rarely turns out well.
Special thanks to St. Martin's Minotaur for providing a copy of The Price of Malice for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read The Price of Malice? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series …
Open
Season
Putnam (Hardcover), September 1988
ISBN-10: 0-399-13398-4 (0399133984)
ISBN-13: 978-0-399-13398-5 (9780399133985)
Borderlines
Putnam (Hardcover), October 1990
ISBN-10: 0-399-13553-7 (0399135537)
ISBN-13: 978-0-399-13553-8 (9780399135538)
Scent
of Evil
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), June 1992
ISBN-10: 0-89296-471-5 (0892964715)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-471-0 (9780892964710)
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Mysterious Press (Hardcover), December 1993
ISBN-10: 0-89296-470-7 (0892964707)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-470-3 (9780892964703)
Fruits
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Mysterious Press (Hardcover), December 1994
ISBN-10: 0-89296-557-6 (0892965576)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-557-1 (9780892965571)
The
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Mysterious Press (Hardcover), December 1995
ISBN-10: 0-89296-558-4 (0892965584)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-558-8 (9780892965588)
The
Ragman's Memory
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), December 1996
ISBN-10: 0-89296-636-X (089296636X)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-636-3 (9780892966363)
Bellows
Falls
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), December 1997
ISBN-10: 0-89296-637-8 (0892966378)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-637-0 (9780892966370)
The
Disposable Man
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), November 1998
ISBN-10: 0-89296-685-8 (0892966858)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-685-1 (9780892966851)
Occam's
Razor
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), November 1999
ISBN-10: 0-89296-682-3 (0892966823)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-682-0 (9780892966820)
The
Marble Mask
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), October 2000
ISBN-10: 0-89296-723-4 (0892967234)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-723-0 (9780892967230)
Tucker
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Mysterious Press (Hardcover), November 2001
ISBN-10: 0-89296-724-2 (0892967242)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-724-7 (9780892967247)
The
Sniper's Wife
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), October 2002
ISBN-10: 0-89296-767-6 (0892967676)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-767-4 (9780892967674)
Gatekeeper
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), October 2003
ISBN-10: 0-89296-766-8 (0892967668)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-766-7 (9780892967667)
The
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Mysterious Press (Hardcover), October 2004
ISBN-10: 0-89296-815-X (089296815X)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-815-2 (9780892968152)
St.
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Mysterious Press (Hardcover), October 2005
ISBN-10: 0-89296-816-8 (0892968168)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-816-9 (9780892968169)
The Second Mouse
Mysterious Press (Hardcover), October 2006
ISBN-10: 0-89296-072-8 (0892960728)
ISBN-13: 978-0-89296-072-9 (9780892960729)
Chat
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ISBN-10: 0-44658258-1 (0446582581)
ISBN-13: 978-0-44658258-2 (9780446582582)
The
Catch
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), September 2008
ISBN-10: 0-312-38191-3 (0312381913)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38191-2 (9780312381912)
The Price of Malice
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), September 2009
ISBN-10: 0-312-38192-1 (0312381921)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38192-9 (9780312381929)
Omnimystery
keywords for The Price of Malice
...
Location(s) referenced: Vermont,
Boston, Maine.
