The Errand Boy: A Novel [Paperback]

Don Bredes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2009

Every small town has its secrets.

Onetime Boston homicide detective Hector Bellevance is married now and settled on the family farm with his pregnant wife, Wilma, and their strong-willed eleven-year-old daughter, Myra, happily spending his days raising vegetables for the farmers’ market and serving, when needed, as the town’s constable.

But Hector’s fair-weather days suddenly darken when a reckless driver leaves Wilma in a coma, and later, after the unrepentant driver turns up brutally murdered, Hector finds himself a natural suspect in the homicide. When the victim’s father offers to pay Wilma’s medical bills if Hector will find his son’s killer, Hector takes the case–more out of compassion than a desire to clear his own name.

Yet the murder quickly proves more vexing and the motives more twisted than even a town constable could have foreseen. Hector discovers an unsavory secret behind every door, and he is soon caught in a web of sex offenders, backwoods meth addicts, undercover federal agents, Hells Angels, and an international drug cartel.

Just when he’s ready to abandon his sputtering investigation–as the police have angrily demanded–Myra disappears from the hospital while visiting her mother, and Hector knows he cannot rest until he has found her. Everything he loves and lives for is at stake.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Canadian businessman Harold Tuttle buys property in Tipton, Vt., clear-cuts 50 acres and erects a huge egg farm, the residual problems—pollution, flies, odors, truck traffic—have area residents up in arms, including town constable Hector Bellevance, in Bredes's suspenseful third novel to feature the stubborn, principled New Englander (after 2006's The Fifth Season). A serious accident caused by Tuttle's arrogant son, Sebastian, puts Bellevance's pregnant wife in a coma. After Sebastian is found beaten to death just days later, in an ironic twist Tuttle hires Bellevance to solve the crime. Bellevance steps on the toes of federal agents and attracts the attention of assorted bad guys, including Hells Angels from Canada and a known killer. But when his 11-year-old daughter is kidnapped, nothing will dissuade Bellevance to back off until he's rescued her. Bellevance provides a fine example of the man's gotta do what a man's gotta do philosophy. (Sept.)
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Review

“The Errand Boy is the most suspenseful and engaging literary thriller I’ve read since Elmore Leonard’s Bandits. What’s truly at stake this time around for Don Bredes’s wonderfully human investigator, Hector Bellevance, is the integrity of his hometown and the safety of his family. The Errand Boy is a beautifully-written work of fiction, combining the unspeakable terror of a father’s worst nightmare with a memorable evocation of what must be one of the “last best places” in these United States.”
—Howard Frank Mosher

“Bredes’s method is a little like his sturdy small-town constable’s–by page two he’s got you by the lapels, pushed you up against the wall, and made you fear what comes next. He doesn’t relax his grip until the last page is turned.”
—Tom McNeal, author of Goodnight, Nebraska

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1 edition (September 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307237435
• ISBN-13: 978-0307237439
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,648,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

DON BREDES lives high in the hills of northern Vermont. He is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and teacher.

He was born in New York City and educated at Syracuse University, the University of California, Irvine, where he was awarded an MFA in Fiction, and Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He has published five novels, HARD FEELINGS (Atheneum, 1977), MULDOON (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982), and his Hector Bellevance literary suspense trilogy, COLD COMFORT (Harmony Books, 2001), THE FIFTH SEASON (Three Rivers Press, 2005), and THE ERRAND BOY (Three Rivers Press, 2009). He has also published numerous short stories and essays.

Don Bredes's HARD FEELINGS was a 20th Century-Fox film release in 1982. The American Library Association selected HARD FEELINGS as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year for Young Adults in 1977. HARD FEELINGS was also included in the New York Times list of notable books.

His feature film adaptation of Howard Frank Mosher's novella, WHERE THE RIVERS FLOW NORTH, starring Rip Torn and Michael J. Fox, received an National Endowment of the Arts grant in 1991 and has appeared on screens in theaters across North America, Europe, and Asia.

www.donbredes.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, September 27, 2009

By 

trh (Ithaca, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Errand Boy: A Novel (Paperback)

Once again Bredes shows his unique ability to both work within and expand the boundaries of the detective novel genre. Beyond the windings and suspense of its plot, a good detective story is essentially about surface and depth, about what we find hidden beneath the everyday when drastic events force us, or our detective stand-in, to surrender our blindness. It's in this generic necessity that Bredes flexes his talent and ultimately succeeds in a way few have; that is, in Errand Boy, through his vivid prose and fully tangible characters, Bredes plunges with the reader not only into the depths of mystery and suspense but also of human character and emotion. Similarly rich is Bredes's depiction of rural Vermont; not since Chandler's Los Angeles has a detective story's setting felt so alive for me, or so necessary for the story told and the characters involved, as does Bredes's Vermont.

While the first two novels in the series certainly delight, it's in The Errand Boy that everything really comes together for Bredes and for the reader, and it's with The Errand Boy that Bredes really cements his role as a truly important contemporary contributor to a rich and long-standing literary tradition.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, November 15, 2009

By 

N. Kenney (Rural South Carolilna) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Errand Boy: A Novel (Paperback)

Don Bredes is a wonderful writer with a unique talent for sketching his locations and characters so carefully that we see and hear exactly what Hector Bellevance sees and hears; when the author describes a "hot, still Saturday in mid-July" with thunder rumbling in the distance, we're there.

Bredes' hero is an ex-cop from the big city, now living back home in Tipton, a small town in northern Vermont, not far from the Canadian border. Hector lives there contentedly as husband, father, farmer, and the town's constable. He knows his neighbors.

When his wife, Wilma, is involved in an accident, however, Hector's world begins to fall apart. As Wilma lies in a coma, there is little for him to do but trust in her doctors and get on with life. But his world is no longer the same, and Hector soon finds himself having to unravel secrets that will eventually uncover a murderer among the people he thought he knew. Hector, himself, said it best: "They were locals...people I knew and who probably knew me. In rural communities crime often took on an intimate complexity. Whatever it was about, odds were you knew who, where, when, how, and usually (sooner or later) why. My mother used to say that small town life enhanced a person's understanding of what it means to be human, though seldom for the better."

I thoroughly enjoyed THE ERRAND BOY as well as the author's earlier Hector Bellevance books, THE FIFTH SEASON and COLD COMFORT; of course I hope there will be more.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best yet, September 23, 2009

By 

Nathan Huttner (New Haven, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Errand Boy: A Novel (Paperback)

The third Hector Bellevance mystery not only surpasses the two other excellent Bellevance novels, but also manages to transcend the genre. I don't want to dwell on the plot, as I think knowing less about it is worthwhile going in, but suffice it to say that Hector, the tough, vegetable-farming town constable, is now balancing new responsibilities as a father with his responsibilities to his town. Anyone who has read anything by Bredes knows his ability to create interesting characters, and he may have produced his most compelling yet in Myra, Hector's young daughter. Myra is intelligent, head-strong, funny and -- not an easy feat -- utterly believable. Her presence helps to make this novel more character-driven than the first two, in which the twists of the plot occasionally threatened to overwhelm the characters. Here, Bredes has managed to use his characters to drive the story forward, benefiting both the characterization and the plotting. What results is a mystery novel that satisfies as a mystery, but exceeds as an exploration of what it means to be a father, to do good, and to discover and confront one's limits. These are themes often encountered, but rarely have I read anything that manages to balance insight, characterization and storytelling so well. As a follower of the series I want to go back to the first two to revisit Hector's development, but this stands alone as an exemplar of what a mystery novel can be in a talented writer's hands.