Archer Mayor
7) Fall guy
An apparent accidental death turns out to be only the first of many murders.
Ben Kendall was a troubled man. Coming back from Vietnam with PTSD and scars that no one else could see, he hid away from the world, filling his house with an ever-increasing amount of stuff, until finally the piles collapsed and he was found dead, crushed beneath his own belongings. But what on first glance looks to be the tragic accidental death of a hoarder may
...Joe Gunther, a longtime Vermont cop and now the head of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation gets the call that every law enforcement person hates and every friend and family member of a policeman fears—a cop has been shot and killed. A deputy sheriff was shot to death during a routine traffic stop on a dark country road. From what can been seen on the cruiser's tape recorder of the killers, it is believed that they were a couple of Boston-based
...Wayne Castine was found brutally murdered and the murderer remains at large. A suspected child predator, he was killed in Brattleboro where he was involved with a tangled network of an extended family living in a local trailer park. Any member of the clan would have had the opportunity to kill him and, as he was involved with both the mother and her twelve-year-old daughter, reason to commit the murder.
At the same time, Joe Gunther has
...13) Chat
A small girl brings Joe Gunther a bird's nest—made partially of human hair. In the search to match a body—and an identity—to the hair's owner, Joe comes across an unexplained death, a grisly murder, and a sudden disappearance. All seem to be entangled in a puzzling web of municipal corruption, blackmail, and industrial espionage. A shell-shocked World War II veteran nicknamed the Ragman may hold the key to it all—but only
...15) St. Albans fire
In northwestern Vermont, young Bobby Cutts enters the family barn and encounters a nightmare. Surrounded by bolts of fire, Bobby and the entire herd perish in a stampeding, circle of flames. Called to the scene to investigate, Joe Gunther instantly recognizes arson. But by whom? And why? Gunther quickly discovers that someone is wreaking havoc across the bucolic farmlands surrounding the town of St. Albans. Somewhere in the dense social fabric
...18) Bellows Falls
Joe Gunther is sent to the neighboring town of Bellows Falls to investigate harassment allegations against a fellow officer. But as Gunther doggedly pursues the truth, what begins as a seemingly open-and-shut case starts to look more and more like a frame job, and he soon finds himself feeling around the edges of a statewide drug distribution network.
As always, Vermont itself is a major character in Mayor's writing, with Bellows Falls standing
...19) Borderlines
Lieutenant Joe Gunther is in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom investigating a minor embezzling case. It's a pleasant distraction and a chance to reconnect with old friends, but when a house fire reveals itself to be arson, compounded by murder, Gunther can't help but investigate. He quickly finds himself enmeshed in a web of animosity between put-upon townspeople, the state police, angry parents, and members of a reclusive sect.
Murder follows
...VBI (Vermont Bureau of Investigation) head Joe Gunther and his team are called in to investigate a series of violent deaths that appear unrelated until telltale clues reveal a linkage between them and that all of the deaths are, in fact, murders. However, apart from a single drop of unexplained blood left at each crime scene, there are no obvious connections between the victims or the cases. In the search for the elusive truth, the VBI must plumb
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