The usual disclaimer: David Benjamin is a lifelong friend so I might be biased. But I think I know a good book when I read one. This is a good book.

Copyright 2023 by David Benjamin. Published by Last Kid Books, Madison WI.

This is #4 in Benjamin’s series featuring Jim Otis, a disgraced ex-cop from Chicago who is serving as police-chief-in-exile in Hercules WI, a fictional small farming community near LaCrosse. He is divorced with a precocious teen daughter living with the ex-wife in Chicago. He is dating a high school English teacher. And he isn’t particularly busy in a quiet town like Hercules.

But he has a history with young women. One, Elena, a young (too young when he met her in Chicago) Hispanic woman, pops in and out of his life at inopportune moments. Another, Josie Dobbs, a recent Hercules High grad now at Bryn Mawr, also pops in and out of his life. But where Elena is just confused, Josie is pure evil.

To round out Jim’s life, he is surrounded by a colorful cast of Hercules residents, all of whom appear regularly at A.J.’s, Jim’s local bar of choice.

So that is Jim’s life. All of these characters appear in this book and provide secondary narratives. But the main story is Meryl Clark, Stone McCulloch and Clay Lutz. And the ghost of John Roszak. Yes, the main storyline in this book involves some supernatural events. I don’t like supernatural stories. I avoid Stephen King for that reason. But this one seemed natural. It fit.

The basic backstory is that Clay Lutz, then 17, raped and impregnated Meryl Clark. She left Hercules to have her child, but has returned to finish her high school career. Stone McCullock is the local basketball hero. Probably the best Hercules hoop star since John Roszak who died tragically, on the court while driving for a game-winning basket some 50 years before. Some say that his ghost haunts the gym, which, despite all attempts to brighten it, remains gloomy. It is called the Black Hole by everyone who attends games there. It is said that Roszak’s ghost has the ability to deflect shots made by players who are very talented – like Stone McCulloch.

Also back in town is Clay Lutz, a determined troublemaker, racist and a generally crazy guy. He remains obsessed with Meryl and is determined to take her away with him. Just about the time he arrives Meryl strikes up a romance with Stone. Who just happens to be black. A perfect recipe for trouble.

And there is trouble. The nature of the trouble and how it all resolves is what makes this book so good. It is, I believe, Benjamin’s best book ever. And he has written some good ones.

My only complaint is that the main story seemed to drag a bit in the middle. But the characters at A.J.’s kept it interesting.

8 out of 10.

Copyright 2017 by David Baldacci. Published by Grand Central Publishing, New York.

This is #3 in the Memory Man series by Baldacci. I don’t believe I have read the first two. I am sure I would have remembered (get it?). If you are interested in this book it is probably best that you read the earlier ones first as there are a lot of references in this one to events that occurred in the earlier ones.

The “Memory Man” is Amos Decker, a former homeless football player who, due to a football concussion, now has perfect memory. He forgets nothing that he reads or experiences. But he has also become somewhat autistic and has no social skills. This makes him both extremely valuable and extremely irritating to his colleagues in his new job as a detective at the FBI.

The book begins with Decker witnessing a murder – a man, walking outside FBI headquarters – abruptly stops, pulls a gun and executes a woman passing by him on the sidewalk. He then turns the gun on himself and commits suicide. Tragic, random violence? So it would seem. But the man is a respected businessman with top secret contracts with several federal intelligence agencies. The woman is a substitute schoolteacher and a volunteer at a hospice. Decker needs to find out why this murder/suicide occurred – he doesn’t believe it was random – and why it occurred outside FBI headquarters.

The answers slowly emerge, mostly due to Decker’s amazing recall and his ability to ask the right questions. The Defense Intelligence Agency gets involved because the murderer’s name was heard in chatter involving Middle East terrorists. The pressure to solve the mystery intensifies, helped along by attempts to kill Decker and his team.

The unraveling of the mystery occurs at a nice pace, thanks to Baldacci’s storytelling skill. And things come together quite plausibly at the end.

8 out of 10.