Tucker Peak by Archer Mayor

I was first introduced to Archer Mayor's Joe Gunther series with The Marble Mask, the eleventh novel and theone previous to Tucker Peak. I like the situation that Mayor has created with Gunther in establishing the Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI), a sort of red-headed stepchild of Vermont law enforcement agencies. With the VBI, he has introduced the element of conflict and the battle for legitmacy for Gunther and his contemporaries as they try to establish some respect in the hierarchy of Vermont state agencies. I am not familiar with how the different law enforcement entities are structured or how they fit into the overall scheme of Vermont but Mayor's world is exciting. The author is a town constable and he even pokes fun of his own position.

Tucker Peak, to me, was head and shoulders above The Marble Mask. More action/thriller than mystery, it had more page-turning excitement than the previous novel.

Joe Gunther and the VBI are summoned to the ski resort of Tucker Peak to help the local law enforcement investigate a rash of burglaries. Very quickly, it becomes apparent there is more going on than some delinquents looking to score some fast cash. Joe and fellow VBI-er Sammi Martens go undercover since the nature of the break-ins seems to be inside jobs. The resort is also under attack from an environmentalist group, who is benign but may harbor a more violent element.

About two weeks into their assignment a woman is seriously injured during an accident on the ski lift, one that was nearly fatal. Following that, there is a series of sabotage affecting the ski resort and setting back its plans for improvement and upgrades. The environmentalist group is blamed for the sabotage and the suspected mastermind behind the burglaries is nowhere to be found. Nobody has seen him and leads are coming up as dead-ends.

Mayor's writing style flows easily and leans more toward hard-boiled detective fiction. That's what sets his work apart from others I've read. Throughout the novel, Joe Gunther is interacting with other law enforcement people, cajoling, wheeling and dealing to get what he wants and keep VBI's nose in the clear and improve its standing in the state. He also knows how to get what he wants from the criminals, ne-er-do-wells and suspects. He's the perfect go-between among his co-workers at VBI, smoothing ruffled feathers and doling out big brotherly advice to ensure that everyone gets along and does their job. The result is a likeable character that you certainly want on your side.

As I mentioned earlier, Tucker Peak is a level up from the previous novel for action and excitement for fans of cozy whodunits to detective noir and everything in between.

The Marble Mask by Archer Mayor

My main interest in reading Archer Mayor's "The Marble Mask" was the anticipation of reading a mystery with a solid Vermont setting. My own novels focus on a different state per story and I am unfamiliar with this one. Not many authors write with such pride and love for their states like Mayor or Jean Hager, who has a murder mystery series set in Oklahoma. Sue Henry and Dana Stabenow write Alaskan mysteries. Other authors write about their beloved cities, like Margaret Truman's Washington, DC books and Martha C. Lawrence's Elizabeth Chase in her San Diego.

However, I initially felt that "The Marble Mask" may not be an enjoyable read since there were two factors of the book that tend to detract from the story, from my point of view.

The most important aspect is that Mayor writes in first person through the main character Joe Gunther. Frequently it seems that the author is living vicariously through the main character's adventures, romantic scenes and ultimately becomes the hero solving the mystery. I am not accusing Mr. Mayor of that at all nor am I saying it is a bad thing, but it is something that crosses my mind. (Heck, I even do it sometimes when writing some of my unpublished-for-a-very-good reason stories). Another reason this can become cumbersome is that the story never changes its point of view. It is told solely through the eyes of the main character.

Gunther has plenty of adventures through the course of the "Marble Mask", from being stranded on a mountain during a fierce blizzard nearly freezing to death, and being lured out in the middle of the night for a clandestine meeting, not one, not twice, but THREE times. One resulted in the murder of the contact, the second the death of his would-be killer and the third resulted in his kidnapping.

The second aspect of the novels like this that make them difficult is the tendency to lag when the initial murder is decades old. In "The Marble Mask" the body of a murdered man, frozen for over fifty years, is found on the mountain above Stowe, Vermont. When Gunther is trying to solve such an old crime, the story has a propensity to slow down and crawl because the mystery goes nowhere for a while. Witnesses alive when the original crime was committed have died or are suffering from the ills of old age; buildings have been torn down; documents and records are extremely difficult to locate if they still exist at all. It is only when the detective starts to get close to the solution and somebody responds with deadly force that the pace of the book speeds up.

Mayor does keep a good clip to the story, but there are times when he gets a little wordy in describing the history and area of this New England state where the story takes place.

However, Mayor's novel is an entertaining read and I look forward to more of his works. I found his concept of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation very interesting. The VBI is an agency recently formed by the state government, developed to work with all other state agencies, relying on their resources and people, involving everyone in the process and the glory.

It's an interesting concept, but it did introduce an element of confusion, since the team formed in the story numbered six. This gave the book an over-saturation of main characters. Then the number of suspects continued to grow. Mayor also threw in a couple of peripheral murders, which had little to do with the plot and final solution; just included to introduce a red herring subplot involving the Hells' Angels and a rival group which never solidified.

Joe Gunther finally figures out the perpetrators of the fifty year-old murder and the ones that occurred during the course of the novel mainly by attrition of the suspects, as the body count rises. The family of the first victim is a Mafia-style clan and their intrigues among themselves, employees, bodyguards, partners in crime and rivals become a confusion of who-did-what-to-whom that the solution is not a surprise or very satisfying as a whodunit.

Finally, the reference to the marble mask in the title in the final few pages of the book is so fleeting, the reader wonders why the book was named for it.

Overall, I did enjoy the book. It had plenty of action with an interesting twist and a pride for the beauty of Vermont.