Copyright 2021 by David Benjamin. Published by Last Kid Books, Madison WI.
The usual disclaimer: I know the author. He is one of my oldest and dearest friends.
This is #3 in Benjamin’s series of mysteries featuring Jim Otis, Sheriff of Hercules WI, a small town disparagingly called “hicksville.” Otis is a former Chicago cop who was forced out of both his job and his marriage by a romantic liaison with a young woman who turned out to be underage. That woman appears briefly in this book and she is one of the women giving Otis trouble, but there are others: his ex-wife, his girlfriend, a fire-and-brimstone preacher, several members of the local Ho-Chunk tribe and, most of all, Josie Dobbs, the teen temptress who caused Otis to lose his job in Hercules, later to be regained.
Sherlock Holmes has Professor Moriarty; Jim Otis has Josie Dobbs. She is an “angel” who raises hell. But never gets blamed for the trouble she generates. In this book the trouble is the disappearance of the star junior cheerleader at Hercules High. It is a suspected kidnapping, but no ransom is sought. Josie Dobbs, now a freshman at Bryn Mawr, over a thousand miles away, was in Hercules the weekend when Carrie, the cheerleader, disappeared. Could that fact be significant? Otis has a “hunch” that it is, but he doubts himself due to his personal painful history with Josie (he lost his job because he was accused of raping her). But that history has convinced him that Josie is the Devil incarnate. He may be right.
The plot is not terribly complex, but the story proceeds in a gripping way and the characters and locations – Ajay’s bar, Calamity Jane’s breakfast joint, Hercules High, the stone quarry and the Little Red Church in the Vale – are fully formed. I could picture them as I read. It was a good read.
7 out of 10. More complexity would have boosted the score.