Very Bad Men-Harry Dolan

Very Bad Men
Harry Dolan
Putnam, Jul 7 2011, $25.95
ISBN 9780399157493

In Ann Arbor, Michigan David Loogan is the editor of Gray Streets mystery magazine. He lives with Police Detective Elizabeth Waishkey and her daughter Sarah. Someone leaves a manuscript outside the Gray Streets mystery magazine office. The story line focuses on two previous homicides; that of Henry Kormoran of Ann Arbor, and Terry Dawtrey who he killed when he got him temporarily released from prison to attend his father’s funeral after Lark murdered the old man. Those already actually occurred and a third is about to happen, that of Sutton Bell of Ann Arbor.

Elizabeth and David realize the link between this trio and author Anthony Lark is a Sault Sainte Marie bank robbery seventeen years ago. As Loogan investigates the disappearance of a reporter associated with the case and Waishkey tracks the serial killer, the raging paranoid Lark adds the editor, the cop and the daughter to his list of those needing his murderous attention.

The two L’s Lark and Logan makes this Michigan amateur sleuth mystery fun to read as the former is an intelligent but violent avenging killer and the latter works the manuscript as Bad Things Happen to Very Bad Men but he hopes not to a very diligent editor. Witty and filled with twists, Elizabeth sums up the investigations when she tells Loogan he knows how to charm people; readers will know so does Lark with a tire iron.

Harriet Klausner