Running Out of Road

Starred review from January 13, 2020
Buck Schatz makes a welcome return in Edgar finalist Friedman’s thoughtful third mystery featuring the retired Jewish cop (after 2014’s Don’t Ever Look Back). In 2011, Carlos Watkins, the producer of a true crime podcast, reopens one of Buck’s old cases. Chester March is finally about to be executed for killing his missing wife after decades on death row in Tennessee. Flash back to 1955 when Schatz was a junior detective with the Memphis PD. His first contact with March, an affluent white man, makes Schatz instantly suspicious, and his conviction that March is a killer intensifies after he learns of the 1953 murder of a black prostitute, who was seen by another prostitute getting into March’s car. Despite the evidence Buck amasses, the district attorney refuses to proceed on the basis of “testimony of a negro whore and a Jew detective.” Friedman gradually reveals how March eventually ended up facing lethal injection. Segments from Watkins’s show nicely explore whether the death penalty is ever appropriate. John Grisham fans looking for more nuance and deeper characterizations will be rewarded. Agent: Victoria Skurnick, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary.

January 15, 2020
Facing the inevitable decline of old age, a feisty detective is forced to assess his past. Buck Schatz (Don't Ever Look Back, 2014, etc.) stared down a formidable array of adversaries during his career on the Memphis police force, from low-level grifters to escaped Nazi commandants. And not all the bad guys were on the other side. Stuck-up supervisors and kkklannish colleagues let Buck know that as a Jewish cop in the South, he'd need to be twice as good to be considered even half as good. Still, he's never had an adversary as ruthless as his latest nemesis: his own body. He and his wife, Rose, consult a cavalcade of doctors: a neurologist to help befuddled Buck manage his moderate dementia, a cardiologist, an audiologist, a gastroenterologist, and an ENT. Now Dr. Feingold, an oncologist, has been snuck into the mix. Overwhelmed by medical decisions he can barely understand, much less participate in, Buck takes refuge in something he finds much simpler and clearer: the battle between good and evil. Carlos Watkins, an NPR reporter, wants to rehash an old case of Buck's. Chester March, who was convicted for killing a bunch of women in the 1950s, is finally slated to be executed for his crimes, and Watkins wants to use him to make a public case against capital punishment. Buck's lawyer grandson, Tequila, warns him to steer clear, but when has Buck avoided a fight? Should you, will you, and how can you fight the reaper are questions Friedman handles with amazing grace. Screamingly funny and achingly sad.

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February 1, 2020
Buck Schatz, the codger star of Don't Ever Get Old (2012) and Don't Ever Look Back (2014), returns. Once again, he puts pizzazz into aging. Well, sort of. Imitate Buck, and you'll sail into your nineties keeping a .357 at hand, burn through cartons of Luckies, hate liberals, and insult everybody who crosses your path, including relatives. But, perhaps fortunately, you aren't a retired Memphis homicide detective who holds the department record for gunning down the most suspects. The earlier novels had the curmudgeonly coot creaking along, clutching his walker and cracking wise as he delivered justice to evil people out of his past. This offering, though told in the same compulsively readable prose, has him the subject of an NPR series, of all things, and much wordage goes to debating the pros and cons of capital punishment. A killer Buck put away decades ago is finally going to be executed, and NPR wonders if Buck has any regrets. You won't be able to keep yourself from enjoying his answer while thinking you'd sure like to watch him deliver more geriatric justice.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)