Joe Gunther, hero of Archer Mayor’s police series, is now assigned to a new law enforcement agency, the Vermont Bureau of Investigation.
In its newness, VBI is anxious to satisfy politicians and appease local law enforcement agencies.
That’s why Joe responds to what appears to be a relatively minor series of crimes bothering the local sheriff, Snuffy Dawson. Snuffy’s jurisdiction encompasses Tucker Peak, a resort development plagued by financial woes and the embarrassing attention of environmentalists.
It seems that Snuffy’s hands are full keeping the environmentalists and their wild antics under control.
But Joe and his deputy, the prickly Willy Kunkle, take the case, and just as you expected, it turns into a major crime, complete with mobsters, murders, embezzlement at high levels, tree-huggers, and a sprinkling of regular people caught up in a deal of which they have no knowledge.
What makes the Archer Mayor books so inviting is the snowy locale in Vermont, a place not known for attracting crime. The plot is sort of convoluted, and by the time Joe, Willy and their cohorts solve the thing, the reader has forgotten how it got started. Nevertheless, it has some good scenes, including a spectacular rescue of a woman and child when the ski chair lift breaks down (sabotage?).
Archer Mayor is town constable for a Vermont village. He is a fulltime writer but finds time to volunteer as a firefighter and EMT. Prior to settling in the peace and quiet of Vermont, he pursued such careers as editor, researcher (for Time-Life Books), theater photographer, and medical illustrator.
The Constant Gardener
By John LeCarre
Pocket Books, $7.99.
Opening of the Iron Curtain and removal of the Berlin Wall have in no way dulled John LeCarre’s interest in international intrigue. In fact, the changes since 1990 have sharpened his wits.
In “The Constant Gardener” LeCarre uses as his backdrop the British Foreign Office in Kenya, where he tackles greed and chicanery of unscrupulous pharmaceutical giants.
The book, originally published in 2000, is now available in paperback.
The gardener of the title is a minor British official assigned to Nairobi. In the beginning, Justin Quayle is an innocuous enough diplomat, willing to follow tradition with efficiency but without asking embarrassing questions.
His wife, beautiful and much younger, has no such attachments, and it is she who precipitates our plot. Tessa Quayle is conveniently murdered at the outset. The murder takes places in a remote area, where she was traveling with a handsome Belgian-African physician. The blame is first directed at native bandits, then at the good doctor.
Just as suddenly, Justin realizes that his wife’s murder was not a random crime. Tessa had been investigating a pharmaceutical scandal. Her research apparently revealed that a pharmaceutical company and its distributor were using poverty-stricken Africans as guinea pigs to test an anti-TB drug. The drug was killing the sick Africans.
Inflamed by accusations and innuendo, Justin sets off on an investigation of his own. That’s when he realizes that in addition to the pharmaceutical scandal, he is tackling a massive cover-up made possible by his own Foreign Office.
“The Constant Gardener” is typically British and typically John LeCarre. The plot moves at his deliberate pace, whittling away at the reader’s confidence until you are as alarmed and angry as is Justin. The novel takes Justin to London, to Italy and Canada and back to Kenya before he determines the source of the evil that took Tessa’s life.
LeCarre, who lives in Cornwall, England, is the author of 18 novels, most featuring international espionage.
