Archer Mayor

Reposted from Reviewing the Evidence with permission.

You know the signs: the margins get wider, the plots get thinner, the characters keep making the same jokes and the same mistakes. It's hard to keep a series fresh, and many fine mystery writers become trapped in their own successful formula, phoning in entries after the excitement is over but the market wants more. Not Archer Mayor. In the 28th entry in his excellent Vermont-based Joe Gunther series, his characters continue to be show more interesting, his plots are meaty and rich with detail, and the pacing strides along confidently. It's a mark of the author's virtuosity that in TRACE he has no fewer than three plots on the go, and for an extra challenge he pushes his protagonist to the sidelines to give the other series characters center stage.

When Gunther's elderly mother contracts a particularly serious form of Lyme disease, he takes her to a clinic in Missouri, appointing a trusted detective as his deputy. Heading up the Vermont Bureau of Investigation, even temporarily, isn't Sammie Martens's idea of a good time. Not only does she hate the paperwork, it makes things awkward with her husband, a misanthrope who famously has problems with authority. He's reluctant to report in on a case he's pursuing independently, as always. He's not even sure it's a case. A few broken teeth and a strange piece of electronics found on railroad tracks not far from a station? It could be nothing. But something about it makes his intuition kick into high gear.

Meanwhile a colleague is tipped off to a strange flaw in the stored evidence of an old case nobody wants to reopen. It might reveal that a cop killed on the job in a dramatic shoot-out wasn't the hero everyone thought he was. Add to the mix, a simmering threat involving the daughter of Joe's girlfriend. She's taken a young woman, newly arrived in Burlington with nothing but the clothes on her back, under her wing. She suspects the girl is running from something, but has no idea it's a violent and ruthless man who uses his career as a lobbyist as cover for abusive and controlling behavior.

For most authors, these would be too many threads to weave competently together, keeping each of them equally interesting without risking readers losing the plot - or plots. Yet the transitions between these story lines and the characters involved in each are handled with narrative skill, a master class in how to write 28 books about the same police team while keeping it fresh.

The Joe Gunther series takes the elements of the classic police procedural to explore human relationships – not just the interactions between police and their communities, but also the interactions among one another as co-workers. Conflict between an incompetent, uncaring boss and subordinates is a police procedural cliche, but not here. Gunther's concern for building a team and for treating each member decently provides a throughline for the series. One of the pleasures of the subgenre is that it embraces as a setting the a place so many of us spend a majority of our waking hours, the workplace, making it an important part of the story. In TRACE, Archer Mayor uses that setting, as well as the paths three detectives take to solve their cases, to satisfying effect. show less

#33 in the Joe Gunther police procedural series, set primarily in southern Vermont.

An expensive stolen car is discovered, filled with a variety of stolen goods, including a very old flip phone. In the trunk is the body of the apparent burglar. The car's found in Vermont, but there's reason to believe that the burglar was killed in New Hampshire, and it quickly becomes apparent that federal crimes are also involved. And so our friends from the (fictional) Vermont Bureau of Investigation show more become part of a complicated multi-state/federal task force attempting to solve the many crimes connected to that stolen car.

When you're thirty-three volumes into a crime series, it's hard to keep coming up with fresh new plots; there are, after all, only so many types of crimes that call for the involvement of the VBI. So the pleasure doesn't come from the novelty of the crime. It's in the cleverness with which the familiar puzzle pieces are yet again reshuffled; a new set of victims, suspects, and police officers brought to life with brisk, efficient characterization; and of course, the comfort of spending a few more hours with the series characters.

And Archer Mayor does all of those things as well as anyone in the genre, to significantly less acclaim than he deserves. The Gunther novels are consistently entertaining, and the group of VBI officers who star in them are distinctive, memorable personalities who continue to grow and develop as the series goes on.

As in most crime series, each book stands perfectly well on its own, though there are character details that will mean a little more if they're read in order.

Content warning: The plot involves the sexual abuse of children. That never happens "on screen," as it were, but it is part of the criminal history of some characters. show less

Back home in Vermont, in the very definitely down-at-heels rural and semi-rural old economy where drugs are more widespread than jobs and the feeling of helplessness is widely felt, our detective is asked to investigate a supposed case of sexual harassment by a policeman, and it morphs as all good police procedurals do into dope, murder, manipulation, and jurisdictional touchiness. Previous entries in this series have been more involved in the regulars' emotional lives, but this episode show more still gives us that curious double vision of beautiful New England landscape and sometimes crushing economic collapse. show less

I consume detective novels like candy; a rare treat that must occasionally be overindulged in to maintain balance with other nutritional genre groups.

Tag Man was a captivating diversion for a snowy afternoon on the couch with a sleepy cat and too many Girl Scout cookies. While the plot reads more like a Hollywood action adventure script than fictionalized "true crime" in Vermont, the rollicking bumps and dips keep you engaged and speeding along. The afternoon (and book) were done before I show more knew it.

While I loved the mystery and depth of the Tag Man and his enterprising young daughter, their central roles throughout the story eclipsed the "regulars" of Joe, Willy, Lester, and Sammie quite a bit. As readers of a series, we're provided with what's happened since the last installment, but it's all a bit placeholder: new baby, time off, therapy... but these new details seem stagnant and periphery. I would have preferred a bit more balance and involvement between the characters, but hey, it's a fun, sugary snack - the taste is better when you're not over analyzing it, right? show less