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From the opening polka to the final shocking solution, easy-moving town Constable John McIntire performs a carefully constructed investigation into the death of the wealthy scion of intruders into the Upper Peninsula. He has an improbable name -- Bambi -- and he meets an impossible death at the hands of person or persons unknown. It is late autumn in a previous time -- the 1950s -- on that odd piece of Michigan that's actually closer to Wisconsin and Canada than to the state of its control. UPrs tend to be clannish, suspicious of outsiders and easily willing to help out their neighbors. In the town of St. Adele, the traditional fall dance and get-together, brings out the best and the not so good. Booze, cigarettes and young male hormones propel Bambi Moreland, an Easterner summer resident, here with his parents who are ensconced at a nearby exclusive private vacation club, into sudden physical fisticuffs with a local Indian lad. McIntire breaks up the fight, sends Marvin Wall home from the Town Hall after relieving him of a wicked-looking knife, and hopes that's the end of it. McIntire is an interesting character. He's native to the area, although he was absent for many years, and he doesn't really like being the town constable, because it occasionally entails dragging long-time acquaintances, and even relatives, up before the local justice. The book is replete with quirky, engaging and fascinating characters, some of whom have little to do except enrich their scene, a sheriff who is the most engaging manipulator you can imagine, and a setting that is efficiently and carefully utilized in the best possible way to energize and affect the course of the plot. This is a complex multi-dimension plot, involving all the principal characters in several different ways. It moves well throughout the book. There are no let-downs although if readers are looking for a slam-bang page-turner, HUNTER'S DANCE is not it. This is delightful crime fiction with nuanced characters, delicate balance between pace and exposition and excellent dialog. Operating on multiple levels, author Hills creates a compelling, believable world of wacky uranium and gold seekers, townspeople who'd rather be left alone, thank you, and a good deal that isn't what it first seems.
Reviewed by Carl Brookins, April 2004
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