Review: Known Dead

Law enforcement officers in a small Iowa community stumble across a marijuana field - planted with a variety of the weed which will produce plants with a impressively high market value. A surveillance team of two is moved in, with the plan to intercept the cultivators when they come to tend the plants, make arrests, and go back to routine small town law enforcement. Events turn sour when the two officers are ambushed, one killed, and the local small time drug offender on his way to the plot is dead as well. Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman returns as the narrator of the story (after the debut novel "Eleven Days").

Harstad has a wry, conversational style in presenting Houseman, the first person narrator of the story. Based in a fictional Iowa town of only 2,000, Houseman's character is an engaging combination of shrewd, observant, well trained lawman and small town resident. Often underestimated by the FBI and US drug agents who arrive to assist in solving the case, Houseman and Hester Gorse, an Iowa state investigating agent, hold their own in the turmoil and danger which follow. A savvy police dispatcher and gruff county sheriff complement the group of continuing characters in this ongoing series.

Before the story ends, international arms smuggling, right wing extremist politics, newspersons who assist the investigation, and others who impede it, plus interception and manipulation of internet Email are all part of the mix.

Comments on another well know Internet site which posts reader reviews have included comments that the action in this books drags at times. Certainly the officers find themselves spinning their wheels for several chapters, but I did not find this a drawback, nor did I feel that the action moved too slowly. I responded to these chapters by discovering my admiration growing for the characters, as they refused to let dead ends and frustration deter their search for the killer of the policeman in the ambush.

I can recommend "Known Dead" to readers who enjoy police procedurals. Harstad, a retired small town law enforcement officer himself varies the classic procedural by placing the action in a small town. He knows whereof he writes.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM

Book Review: Known Dead