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Loading... The Fox Valley Murders (1966)by John Holbrook Vance
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  Kampuskop | Dec 10, 2019 |  no reviews | add a review
Ausley Wyett returns on parole to hometown Marblestone, after 16 years in prison for the rape and murder of young Tissie McAllister. He maintains he was innocent-but townfolk are scandalized he dared to come back.One man dies, and it looks like a heart attack. Another dies after eating wild mushrooms. It looks like a hunting accident for the third, and a fourth falls and breaks his neck. Could it be simple coincidence that all of these men testified at Ausley's trial?Deputy Joe Bain is elevated to acting-sheriff when Sheriff Cuchinello goes to his reward. Bain wants the full-term job, but it's an elected position and the competition is stiff, in one Lee Gervase-a modern, up-and-coming lawyer. Ausley is the natural suspect, but the circumstances are facile and Joe Bain is convinced other hands are at work. But he needs to crack the case soon-before the election, before another man dies...The Fox Valley Murders is Volume 21 of the Spatterlight Press Signature Series.Released in the centenary of the author's birth, this handsome new collectionis based upon the prestigious Vance Integral Edition. Select volumes enjoyup-to-date maps, and many are graced with freshly-written forewords contributedby a distinguished group of authors. Each book bears a facsimile of theauthor's signature and a previously-unpublished photograph, chosen from family archives for the period the book was written. These uniquefeatures will be appreciated by all, from seasoned Vance collector to new reader sampling the spectrum of this author's influential work forthe first time. - John Vance II No library descriptions found. |
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Wikipedia in English
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Latterly, with the advent of the Spatterlight Press publications, more stories and novels are exposed of which I knew nothing. This, for one who laments Jacks demise most mournfully, is happier news, for it seems there is still much more yet to read.
The Deputy/Sheriff Joe Bain story 'The Fox Valley Murders' the first one of these I have read, is Volume 21 of the Spatterlight series - I have a lot of back reading to do.
The story itself has much of the style and format I have come to recognize. A murder mystery with a central character (deputy Joe Bain) under pressure for various reasons encounters resistance and obfuscation in his attempt to solve an increasingly perplexing sequence of deaths. Are they a series of suicides, or if not, how are the 'murders' accomplished? Well developed characters with back stories set in a well defined location, make this an interesting read in itself.
Compared to the Baroque prose of his science fantasy work, this is a relatively straightforward yarn, but there are many intimations of his SF style. However, the deadpan narrative and pervasive irony are lathered thick and his observations of a rural small Californian town, gives this Brit another insight of American life - as it might have been, back in the day. (