Chasing Away the Devil
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
"With a voice that's as comforting as a rocking chair and as salty as a fisherman" (Houston Chronicle, of Houston in the Rearview Mirror), Deputy Sheriff Milton Kovak of Prophesy County, Oklahoma, returns.
Milt finally gets up the nerve to ask his longtime ladylove, Glenda Sue Rainey, to marry him—only to be rebuffed with no explanation and a good-bye at the door. When Glenda Sue is found dead the next day, brutally murdered, Milt is dazed.
Enter Glenda Sue's long-lost daughter, who arrives in town for the funeral with her own little girl in tow. The only problem: little Rebecca is half-black, and the residents of Prophesy County aren't all as open-minded as Milt. As the threat of more violence looms, Milt begins to have strange dreams about Rebecca's safety, dreams whose common feature is the presence of a woman with leg braces.
These dreams lead him to Dr. Jean McDonnell, a handicapped psychiatrist, whom Milt enlists to help him find out what happened to Glenda Sue—and why. When sister Jewel Ann announces plans to move herself and her family out of Milt's house and into the home of Harmon Monk, Milt begins to see Dr. McDonnell as having a role to play in his personal life as well.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Head deputy of Prophesy County, Okla., Milt Kovak, seen last in Other People's Houses , is well into middle age and still proposing marriage to his divorced childhood sweetheart, Glenda Sue. One rodeo night she refuses him yet again and won't even let him sleep in her trailer. Next day she is found covered with cigarette burns and with her throat cut. in her ransacked trail er. Though warned off the case by the sheriff because of his emotional involvement, Milt determines to investigate. Glenda Sue's daughter Melissa arrives from California with her small daughter, Rebecca, whose father is black. During their stay with Milt, Melissa is knocked out, Rebecca locked in the cellar and Milt's house torn apart. What are the bad guys looking for? Why had Glenda Sue bought a one-way airline ticket to Paris and how did she afford it? As Milt finds out after Rebecca's been kidnapped, the answers involve a group of racist right-wingers, a lot of dirty money and some ``nice'' local people. Despite some unlikely events (Milt's new love-at-first-sight; his recurring nightmare) this tale has real suspense and pace. Milt is a delightful narrator, both bemused and acerbic.
