The Ditched Blonde (Carl Wilcox Mysteries) [Paperback]

Harold Adams (Author)

Book Description

Series: Carl Wilcox Mysteries | Publication Date: October 1998

You don't get run over--twice--and left in a roadside ditch, if your death is an accident. But that's what happened four years ago to blonde, beautiful, teenaged and pregnant Genevieve Sinclair. Now Carl is in Greenhill, South Dakota, and he isn't one to let murdered girls go unavenged.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

He's perhaps the last word in laconic lonerdom; he's drifter Carl Wilcox (A Way with Widows), traversing Depression-era small-town America, taking on odd jobs and solving mysteries. Here, he finds himself in Greenhill, S.D., where, four years earlier, teenager Genevieve Sinclair, popular and pregnant, was killed, hit repeatedly by a car. She left behind a bunch of boy suitors and two older men, all clearly infatuated. The unsolved case has obsessed Officer Schoop, the local cop who couldn't solve it, and he persuades Wilcox, who has a bit of rep, to take a crack at it. Although Adams spends too long attempting to drill holes in the most obvious suspect's alibi (which involves a married woman and a missing buddy), he sustains his own reputation for excellence by slyly pulling his narrative punches. His deliberately barren prose manages to echo the times and the terrain with remarkable effect, and Wilcox is just enough of a cross between tender and tough to be believable.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Wandering sign painter Carl Wilcox enters Greenhill, South Dakota, paints a sign or two, then investigates the four-year-old murder of a pregnant teenager. Although his reputation as a sleuth has preceded him, the reason for the rekindled interest in the case remains fuzzy?as usual, Adams (A Way with Widows, LJ 9/1/94) cuts to the chase. Carl's queries rile the wrong people, and even here political agendas provide motive for murder. Carl, a product of a less complicated time (1930s), stands tall?though not without the occasional horizontal hanky-panky?and tough. Just essential prose, good dialog, believable action; recommended.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company; ARC edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802775551
• ISBN-13: 978-0802775559
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,445,968 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gem of a book, February 7, 2006

By 

Srdjan Pesic (Minneapolis, Mn United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ditched Blonde (Carl Wilcox Mysteries) (Paperback)

This is a gem of a book. Mr.Adams recreates the Great Depression South Dakota with spare language and few colors. There is no unnecessary word or padded sentence in this short novel. It was a great pleasure to discover Mr.Adams.Four and a half stars.

0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Ditched Blonde review, November 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ditched Blonde (Carl Wilcox Mysteries) (Hardcover)

The story starts out in Greenhill, South Dakota during the Depression-era. In this book, Carl Wilcox is a sign painter that finds work in Greenhill. Wilcox gets hired as a "unofficial" investigator of an unsolved murder. The current mayor and local businessman, whose son had dated the dead Gen, whose alibi for the night of the murder, may have been purchased. As Wilcox becomes widely known in the small little town, he asks several of the kids and adults about the murder. Wilcox began to turn up all kinds of new evidence that was never looked at.