Bad Moon Rising

Starred review from August 15, 2011
Social turmoil overshadows the sleuthing in Gorman’s excellent ninth Sam McCain mystery (after 2009’s A Ticket to Ride). In 1968, a hippie commune near Black River Falls, Iowa, both horrifies and entices the townsfolk with its uninhibited lifestyle. Sardonic lawyer and investigator McCain becomes involved after the discovery of the body of Vanessa Mainwaring, the teenage daughter of a well-to-do local, at the commune, and a Vietnam vet who’s one of its members flees. Interference by a bigoted sheriff, an opportunistic preacher, and a hysterical father makes matters even worse as Sam tries not just to solve the murder but to help the people around him caught in an intensely stressful situation. The real crime, as Sam eventually realizes, is how one generation exploits the next—while the younger generation devours itself. In turn mellow and melancholy, this book grapples with problems that are too complex for any detective to untangle.

October 1, 2011
1968. Gorman takes sleuthing Iowa attorney Sam McCain from the Democratic National Convention to a more personal rendezvous with history. Just because everybody in Black River Falls knows each other doesn't mean that they all like each other. Judge Esme Whitney and Police Chief Cliffie Sykes look down their noses at the scruffy young people in Richard Donovan's commune. Vanessa Mainwaring must have had her reasons for dumping her troubled ex-boyfriend Neil Cameron. And clearly someone took against Vanessa—someone who stabbed her to death in the commune's horse barn. When Sam's attempt to bring Neil in for questioning is thwarted when Neil's sister, Sarah Powers, knocks him out long enough for Neil to make his escape, Sarah naturally gets arrested herself, and Sam naturally agrees to represent her. Though Vanessa's wealthy father, liberal industrialist Paul Mainwaring, hires Sam to investigate, he turns on him once Neil is found shot to death and Sam refuses to accept his apparent suicide as the end of the road. Even the Mainwaring home, it turns out, houses plenty of conflict. Paul and Eve, his carefully groomed second wife, may be comfortable with their open marriage, but it had been driving Vanessa and her sister Nicole crazy. Nor does Sam's dogged persistence with a case everyone else regards as closed win him any new friends. As usual in this warmly observed series, the mystery is untidy. Read this installment, like all the others (Ticket to Ride, 2009, etc.), for the pop-historical detail and the loving evocation of small-town America.

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September 15, 2011
It's 1967, and hippies have invaded Black River Falls, Iowa. Most of the locals are content to let the longhairs live in peace on a commune, but others feel under siege. Trouble starts when the daughter of the town's wealthiest citizen, Paul Mainwaring, is found murdered in a commune barn. Sam McCain, the once-young, once-idealistic lawyer and investigator now drifting toward middle age, is hired by Mainwaring to find the killer. Neil Cameron, a troubled Vietnam vet who had a crush on the victim, looks good for the murder. When he dies, the Mainwarings feel justice has been done, but Sam isn't convinced and continues his investigation, frustrating the family. Gorman, as he has done so well throughout this series, vividly captures the era. The hippies, the animosity between Vietnam hawks and doves, the drugs, and the music all provide rich background for a cleverly plotted, fast-paced mystery. Those who lived through the sixties will field a rush of memories; younger generations will find the novel a telling guidebook to the era.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)