John Verdon's clever, cerebral mysteries about retired New York Police Department homicide detective Dave Gurney take another leap forward in On Harrow Hill; this seventh outing is part puzzle, part police procedural and all entertainment.
Verdon has a knack for creating outlandish, almost unbelievable, situations that reach logical, realistic conclusions. On Harrow Hill begins when Dave is asked to help his old partner Mike Morgan, now the police chief of Larchfield, an affluent village with a low crime rate about an hour from Dave's Catskills home in upstate New York.
The odd crime involves 78-year-old Angus Russell, Larchfield's wealthiest, most powerful and despised resident, murdered while his 28-year-old wife, Lorinda, slept in her bedroom next door. The killer seems obvious--the fingerprints of local ex-con Billy Tate are on the murder weapon. But Billy died the day before the murder, struck by lightning, then falling from the roof of a church he was vandalizing. Mike and the medical examiner witnessed Billy's death. Then a video shows Billy breaking out of his coffin in a funeral home's basement. Pulling together all the plot threads--which grow even more complicated--takes all of Dave's thoughtful perception, but also his ability to re-evaluate his sleuthing skills.
Dave, who thrives on bizarre cases, is well aware that a "trick of the mind" can taint even his insight. Larchfield emerges as a full character, as duplicitous and strange as its residents. Yet no matter how weird the circumstances of On Harrow Hill become, Verdon (Shut Your Eyes Tight) retains tight control of his plot. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer