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THE CLINCH KNOT
by John Galligan
Bleak House, September 2008
328 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1606480030


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

It‛s a truism that "You can run but you cant hide." Ned "The Dog" Ogilvie is working very hard on the first part. For him that means driving his decrepit RV around the country and fishing for trout wherever there‛s a decent river. Right now, that river is in Livingston, Montana and The Dog can‛t fish it. It‛s been fenced off, and it just torments him. Oh, he‛s still fishing but he knows that the fish are bigger and better in the Roam River.

Life is not so simple in Livingston. Sheriff Chubbock is hanging on to life and his job, tethered to an oxygen tank. This makes it difficult to visit crime scenes, so that is often left up to his deputy, a man who covets Chubbock‛s job. The Dog has also observed the doings at the local bait shop, where Hilarious Sorgensen and his wife are frequently at odds on the few occasions when she‛s not off visiting her numerous relatives. There‛s the nut case who is training to outrun a pronghorn antelope. And there‛s Jesse Ringer. She is absolutely lovely, convinced that her father‛s murder conviction is SO wrong, and she‛ll sleep with just about anyone if she thinks they can help her get her father out of jail. This is a lot of people, apparently.

Right now, she‛s in a relationship with D‛Ontario Sneed. It looks like love. This doesn‛t sit well with some of the more conservative elements in Livingston, seeing as D‛Ontario is black. But D‛Ontario is the obvious suspect when Jesse is shot and his apparent suicide attempt leaves his brain a little scrambled and unclear about who the killer is.

D‛Ontario‛s mother Aretha descends on Livingston. Her relationship with her son is not wonderful; she has a past and it doesn‛t overlap very much with his. She and The Dog, separately and together, do their best to find out who killed Jesse. In the process, they have to deal with each other, and that is not for either of them.

I have mixed feelings about THE CLINCH KNOT. I am, perhaps, just not in the right mood for this book right now. I‛m tired of the alcoholic as detective, muddling his way through situations where most people would either have the brains (or instinct for self-preservation) enough to not get involved or would suffer grave consequences for that involvement. Ned “The Dog” Ogilvie doesn‛t seem, sometimes, to have the sense God gave a gnat. Yes, there are consequences. They just don‛t seem quite as long-term or dire enough, at least to me.

And yet, we all know people like Ned. I think the moniker “The Dog” is quite appropriate: Ned just keeps gnawing away at things, digging at the nasty stuff that‛s buried, sticking his figurative nose in somebody‛s privates, and barking at whatever goes by. So I put THE CLINCH KNOT down many, many times because I was just not happy with Ned‛s obtuseness. It is definitely a credit to Galligan‛s skill as a writer that I kept picking it back up. I thoroughly enjoyed Aretha and her story. I did want to know how everything was connected. While I saw some of the solution, Galligan knows how to put the twist on a plot that has become almost mandatory. So? If you enjoyed his previous books or if you enjoy Victoria Houston‛s fishing books, then THE CLINCH KNOT should give you an entertaining read.

Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, June 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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