Bloody River Blues

Bloody River Blues by Jeffery Deaver

Several years ago, I worked as a liaison between the book publishers and various retailers.  One of the perks (pretty much the only perk) is that we could get free paperback books anytime we wanted.  Even though that’s now been almost eight years ago, my garage is still lined with unread yarns - just waiting to be consumed some day.  When I came across, and then read a Jeffery Deaver book titled The Stone Monkey, I was hooked.  Upon completion, I quickly ventured outside to the sultry holder of the cars to see if there were any other works by this author that might await me.  Alas, there were only a sad few.  I then learned the author had about twenty-five pieces of work, so my next visit was Ebay.  To may a long story a bit longer, I came across a listing of about fifteen of the author’s works for $25.  A steal!

So, with a new collection of books by a new author, it was time to do some reading.  As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs on the subject, I’m always compelled, if possible, to read multiple offerings of an author in order of release.  Although that might come across to some as a bit obsessive-compulsive (it is), it’s also rewarding because, in many cases, authors will end up telling a linear group of stories from one book to the next, and although not necessary, it can be beneficial to start from the start.

Written around the late 1980’s (under a pseudonym William Jefferies), the story takes place in a hard-hit (fictional?) town called Maddox, Missouri.  The only thing looking up for this town, is when a Hollywood company shows up to use the town as a backdrop for its story.  Our protagonist is John Pellam, who is the location scout for this particular film.  Although the film is already in production, the film’s director is one of those eccentric types who keeps changing his script as he is filming, so Pellam needs to stick around the sleepy town for awhile.  Not that this should bother him.  He works free lance, after all, so as long as the money keeps coming in....

Well, in this particular dreary municipality, a second rate murder is about to go down.  Pellam just happens to be walking through downtown buying a case of beer, and although he doesn’t really see anything happen, he’s the closest thing the cops have to a witness.  So now, the cops are looking for him, the FBI is looking for him, the bad guys are looking for him, the muscle behind the bad guys are looking for him, and so on and so on.

Now, I’ve never been accosted by a police officer when they were inquiring about a crime, but could someone please tell me why when this happens in the movies or books that the guy being solicited for information always has to act so smart-mouthed and belligerent?  I can’t help but thinking that if our friend John Pellam would have maybe just cooperated with the authorities a bit better, he could have avoided an awful lot of drama.  Maybe he might not like cops, but does it hurt to be as helpful as possible when an attempt is made to solve a murder?  So, yes, in a way, the police in this story almost become just as bad as the murderous thugs.  Well, I guess you need to tell a decent story.

Then, there’s this mysterious, great looking blonde who happens to show up out of the blue and starts getting very chummy with Pellam.  You have to ask (and Pellam should as well), why would such a hotty be even remotely interested in a washed up free lance movie location scout?  Alarm bells go off.  For the reader, anyway.  So through the complex labyrinth, things eventually sort themselves out, and everybody is free to live another day and make another movie.

I found this book to be “o.k.”, but definitely not much more than that.  A lot of it, sadly, seems to be in the abysmal town where our story takes place.  At one point near the beginning, the author devotes quite a lengthy part of a chapter describing just how bad off this place is and, well, let’s just say it doesn’t even make you want to visit it as a reader.  Plus, it really doesn’t help when the majority of the characters aren’t even from this place, so there’s not much of an attachment from the key parties involved.  It made a decent story with some good plot twists, and most of the characters were somewhat interesting.  Hind sight being twenty-twenty, it’s comforting to know that this author does get a lot better with time.

NOTE: After completing this book, I found out that the author has, in fact, written a “series” of books around this character as well.  They’re referred to as “The Location Scout” mysteries.  Not sure if that’s good or bad yet....