DOUBLE DEAD
By Terry Hoover
Five Star/Thomson Gale
ISBN: 9781594145872
Hardback, 357 pages, $25.95
Genre: Mystery

It’s the ‘60s and tension is high between John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Fidel Castro, the cold war is raging, and you can buy a bomb shelter in a kit. But in the small town of Charlotte, North Carolina, life is slow and easy until John Lattimore, one of the town’s most esteemed members, is arrested for murdering his girlfriend, Delores Green. Lattimore claims he found Delores’s dead body at his cabin and simply brought her home, but he made one grave mistake. He bullied Delores’s son, Greg, into helping him create the impression she died of natural causes. But 200+ bruises over Delores’s body prove otherwise.

Former newspaper reporter Steve Harlan has set up office as a private investigator and is barely making ends meet. When Lattimore’s defense attorney asks Steve to investigate Delores’s death, this offer seems like a godsend. Steve learns Delores was an alcoholic and took prescription medicine, and this becomes Lattimore’s defense. Although Steve does not believe Lattimore is innocent, his investigation leads him to a gas station robbery in a nearby town and back to Lattimore’s cabin, where danger awaits.

Hoover’s Southern ambiance and dialect read true to the time and place. Harlan is a likeable character, a man of principle whose first priority is his family. This debut in the Steve Harlan mystery series is a fast-paced whodunit with plenty of red herrings and suspense.