Prairie Gothic

#2 in the Mad Dog & Englishman police mystery series set in small-town Kansas. Sheriff English has two dead bodies to deal with at the Sunshine Rest Home one cold winter morning—the first, a resident of the home who was dying of cancer, is missing. The second is a recently-born dead infant being toted around by one of the Alzheimer’s patients in place of her usual “baby doll.” Where did she get it, and to whom does it belong? Add the worst blizzard in a decade to the mix, and now the Sheriff has REAL problems! This book almost reads like a Guy Ritchie movie—a series of vignettes with different characters, quite violent yet funny as hell, all unknowingly connected, and all hurtling towards each other for one big messy climactic show more scene.

I feel that Hayes is a much-overlooked author, and I enjoyed this book even more than I did the first one…the whole thing was quite fantastical…and yet, you can see it happening because you know people as stupid as some of the baddies. It won’t be too long til I head on back to Buffalo Springs for another visit. The only thing I find annoying about this series of books is the total lack of chapters…sections are delineated with spaces between paragraphs or little icons…but that’s minor. show less