Somebody's Fool
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
'A wise and witty drama of small-town life . . . delivering the generous humour, keen ear for dialogue, and deep appreciation for humanity's foibles that have endeared the author to his readers for decades' Publishers Weekly
Ten years after the death of the magnetic Donald 'Sully' Sullivan, the town of North Bath is going through a major transition as it is taken over by its much wealthier neighbour, Schuyler Springs. Peter, Sully's son, is still grappling with his father's tremendous legacy as well as his relationship to his own son, Thomas, wondering if he has been all that different a father than Sully was to him.
Meanwhile, the towns' newly consolidated police department falls into the hands of Charice Bond following the resignation of Doug Raymer, the former North Bath police chief and Charice's ex-boyfriend.
When a decomposing body turns up in the abandoned hotel situated between the two towns, Charice and Raymer are drawn together again and forced to address their complicated attraction to one another. Across town, Ruth, Sully's married ex-lover, struggles to understand her granddaughter, Tina, and her growing obsession with Peter's other son, Will. Amidst the turmoil, the town's residents speculate on the identity of the unidentified body and wonder who among their number could have disappeared unnoticed.
Brimming with warmth, wisdom and Russo's signature wry humour, Somebody's Fool is another classic from a modern master of storytelling.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Russo (Nobody's Fool) concludes his North Bath trilogy with a wise and witty drama of small-town life. Donald "Sully" Sullivan, the hero of the first two books, has been dead for 10 years, a loss that many of the characters in this volume continue to grapple with. Sully's son, Peter, who always assumed he was destined for bigger and better things than small-town North Bath, N.Y., sticks around to renovate his father's Victorian house. Meanwhile, former police chief Douglas Raymer contemplates the loss of his job after the town was annexed by its richer neighbor, Schuyler Springs. Adding to the complications for Raymer, his longtime girlfriend is made the new Schuyler Springs police chief. But it's Peter's estranged son, Thomas, who sets the plot in motion when he shows up in North Bath unannounced. Thomas claims he's just passing through on his way to Montreal, but Peter believes otherwise, and circumstances soon suggest more sinister motivations involving revenge for Peter's abandonment of Thomas as a child. Russo gets a slow start, laying on a bit too much backstory at the outset, but the novel soon picks up speed, delivering the generous humor, keen ear for dialogue, and deep appreciation for humanity's foibles that have endeared the author to his readers for decades. Though Sully is gone, his world is alive and well.