The Weatherman's Daughters
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
A JOHN DENSON MYSTERY
In The Weatherman's Daughters, Richard Hoyt returns to his highly acclaimed John Denson mystery series with a natty new twist.
Two daughters of a Portland weatherman have been killed for no apparent reason and John Denson and his Native American partner, Willie Sees the Night, are called from their remote cabins on Whorehouse Meadow in the Cascade Mountains to help. But for once Denson is stumped—this is a trail he can't seem to follow.
Frustrated by his inability to trace a criminal monster, Denson sets down his skepticism and accepts, provisionally, Sees the Night's shamanistic ways. Out-of-body flying? Entering the spirit of an animal? Can it be true? Can Denson solve murders by playing Carlos Castaneda to Willie's Don Juan?
An exotic dancer wants to join the investigation, and Denson cannot resist her. But does she really intend to help? Or is she a spy or saboteur?
Willie offers Denson a challenge. Since your rational ways aren't working, open the door to shamanism. Leave your body and seek to join the spirit of an animal who might be a guide.
Though fearing that he will never come back, Denson takes the risk.
The trail revealed smells of bear galls, ancient Chinese medicine, and right-wing malcontents. Denson, the tracker, is profoundly changed by his discoveries.
“Hoyt has a fresh, invigorating style that grabs the reader immediately. He is a master.” —THE NEW YORK TIMES
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A disjointed plot full of absurdities irks more than it entertains in Hoyt's latest John Denson mystery (Whoo?, etc.), which opens with a torrential downpour of live salmon beating Denson and his VW bus to a pulp after he stops at an accident scene alongside an Oregon mountain roadway. A young woman, Sharon Toogood, lies dying of a bullet wound. The daughter of Portland TV weatherman Jerry Toogood, Sharon was carrying Denson's PI firm's card in her wallet. In trying to understand the salmon shower and the deepening mystery surrounding the Toogood family, Denson seeks the aid and counsel of his Native American cohort, Willie Sees the Night. Willie assures Denson that the salmon shower was the spirit world's means of embodying within him the appropriate animal spirit. So, at Denson's insistence, Willie supplies him with a concoction that sends Denson "flying" in an out-of-body experience that may help him find some of the answers to this and a second murder. Over-the-top characters include bear poachers, a health-food store owner who wears Dumbo ears and a sci-fi monster face, members of a militant militia group and a double-jointed girlie-club-dancing FBI agent. Smacking strongly of the 1960's cult film Candy, this will appeal to readers for whom humorous incidentals matter more than a plausible story line. FYI: Hoyt is also the author of Old Soldiers Sometimes Lie (Forecasts, date Tk, 2002) and other military/political thrillers.
