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Though marketers love to tag mysteries with a specific subgenre label, the Claire Watkins series by Mary Logue is hard to categorize. It's a police procedural, but since the setting is a small town in rural Wisconsin, the recurring cast of police officers is fairly small, as are the crimes they investigate. Its protagonist is a former big-city cop who has adapted her life to small-town rhythms. The characters don't swear a lot, but they participate as both villains and victims in crimes that are realistically sad and grim if not spectacles that could make national headlines. The books in this series could appeal to both cozy readers and fans of grittier crime, though they are less likely to hit the spot with readers who crave pulse-pounding action and high-drama character development. Claire is a level-headed mother of a teenager who does her job well, trying to keep her community safe without histrionics.
In this series entry, the town gathers for a rural Midwestern "burning man" event to mark the coming of winter. Volunteers construct a Viking ship out of packing crates and students at an elementary school bury clay pots under it to use the fire as a kiln. At the event, Claire's daughter, who is soon to head off to college, meets an attractive man named Andrew. After the fire, a child retrieving her pot finds bones in the ashes of the ship, Claire has to step in as acting sheriff when her boss suffers a heart attack, and Andrew, a deputy who recently returned from a difficult tour in Afghanistan, becomes a suspect when the bones are identified as the remains of his needy ex-girlfriend. There's something squirrely about the dead woman's fiancé, who resented her relationship with Andrew. There's also something deadly brewing as Andrew's former army buddy sets out to redeem a battlefield promise.
Logue writes children's books and is a published poet, and it shows – not in lyrical or prolix prose but in its economy. Readers used to extensive explorations of characters' lives and motives may feel a bit shortchanged by a story that, at barely over 200 pages, has as much plot as the typical 300-page mystery or the increasingly common 450-page doorstop. She shows, but doesn't tell, and she avoids manipulating the narrative to manufacture suspense or pathos. This results in a book that is slender, but has all the necessary ingredients for a satisfying read. It manages to raise serious issues in a realistic way while being, in the end, quietly reassuring.
§ Barbara Fister is an academic librarian, columnist, and author of the Anni Koskinen mystery series.
Reviewed by Barbara Fister, February 2014
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