Customer Reviews

The Price of Malice (Thorndike Crime Scene)

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Mayer's thriller is set in Vermont, where a man is found brutally stabbed and beaten, virtually unrecognizable, save an ID in his wallet. The crime scene is soaked in blood, turning the indelicate stomachs of even the most seasoned investigators, Joe Gunther of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation and his crack team of detectives. And from the first chapter, Mayor takes charge of his characters and the rhythm of his story, with believable dialog and a grotesque crime scene. The author perfectly captures the cop shop camaraderie, consistent throughout the book, an eclectic group of men and women who live with violence in every from yet manage personal lives and relationships that sustain them.

There is no ambiguity about which side Mayor is on, the sometimes slow, but affective wheels of Vermont's Bureau of Investigation turning, producing results, but not without unexpected twists and dangerous situations that threaten the public and officers alike. It's a good thing Gunther can rely on his team because an unexpected situation sends him from Vermont to Maine in pursuit of his current hopeful relationship with Lyn Silva. Lyn's father and brother have been killed in a fishing-related accident- or so she thinks- until new information surfaces that causes Lyn to question everything she has believed about her father. Lyn wants answers, putting herself in considerable danger in her need to find the truth. Hence, Joe's impulsive rush to Maine and a few terrible hours when he learns that Lyn has disappeared.

Mayor juggles both cases, Gunther hovering over the Vermont investigation while pursuing Lyn in Maine, where he happily accepts the aid of Maine's bureau officers. The characters, good and bad, are strong and realistic, from Joe's team to the petty criminals who barter in information and the sociopaths who slip the boundaries of sanity and take revenge the old fashioned way. This is Mayor's genre, a satisfying walk on the wild side filled with colorful characters and close escapes, the detritus of existence below the radar and the occasional bursts of violence that call for the best in law enforcement for resolution. Luan Gaines/2009.

First Sentence: Willy Kunkle gently removed his one functional hand from the bare back of the woman stretched out beside him and reached for the softly buzzing cell phone on the night table.

Wayne Castine, a suspected pedophile, has been found brutally stabbed, in the apartment of a neighbor who didn't know him. While Willy, Sammie and the VBI team work to solve the murder, Joe is off on a personal investigation. He is helping his girlfriend, Lyn, discover who murdered her father and brother.

I love New England so books set there do have a special meaning for me. Mayor always creates a very strong sense of place but occasionally gets a bit carried away with the driving directions. But that's a minor thing.

What brings me back, book after book, are his characters. Joe Gunther, the protagonist, can be so solid as to almost be boring; Lyn, his girlfriend--well, I started to like her until she did something so TSTL even though she realizes it too late. It's Willy, Sammie, Les and Ron who add color and dimension and balance to the stories.

The plotting was very well done. Mayor describes the investigative procedure and process well, while balancing it with humanity and emotion. The two plot lines were well balanced and never confusing. There was good suspense in both lines. I also appreciated the realistic frustration the team felt with Joe's absence.

Mayor continues to be a "must buy" author for me.

THE PRICE OF MALICE (Pol Proc-Joe Gunther-New Hampshire/Maine-Cont) - VG
Mayor, Archer - 20th in series
Minatour Books, 2009, US Hardcover - ISBN: 9780312381929

It's time for Joe Gunther to stay in Vermont for awhile. Although this book as well as the entire Joe Gunther series is much better than your average in this genre, having Joe leaving the state for Maine is starting to stretch the plots and the characters a little too far. I'm sure Maine is a beautiful state but without giving too much away Joe's business there is now finished. Come home Joe and stay in Vermont for at least an entire book. Your readers and your fellow fictional law enforcement colleagues will be happier if you do.

This most recent Joe Gunther novel begins when Joe's Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI) team responds to a murder scene. The victim, Wayne Castine, is known on the street as a lowlife pedophile; and he has not so much been killed as butchered. Evidence soon shows that Castine was closely involved with a "trailer trash" family, and the cops naturally wonder whether this may have played a role in his death. Looks like a typical, if puzzling, investigation.

But for Joe it quickly becomes atypical. His girlfriend, Lyn, has recently learned (through Joe) that her dad's fishing boat, presumed lost in a storm at sea that also apparently killed Lyn's dad and brother, has been found in Maine. Without any evidence of a crime, the Maine police have nothing to investigate; and the boat returns to Lyn's family.

But the discovery of the boat unsettles Lyn and makes her wonder how her father and brother really died. She also wonders what her dad and brother were doing on that voyage and whether dad was not the principled man she grew up admiring as well as loving. Being action oriented and impatient, she decides to look into it herself. This soon involves Joe, who is concerned about what Lyn may stumble into.

Soon he is splitting time between the two unconnected cases, with the predictable results that he cannot focus fully on either case and the physical distance between the cases exhausts him as he scrambles back and forth between them. Joe kids himself that he has both cases covered but soon both are spinning out of control, with danger for all involved.

Mayor is a wonderfully competent writer. He does not hit a home run every time but he never strikes out either. Some books in this series are outstanding, but none is truly weak. As always this book has colorful and believable characters, a strong sense of place, a sound plot and an adroit hero who is tough, humane and dedicated to his people and the job. This is not the best that Mayor has produced but it is unfailingly interesting.

This is the twentieth entry in Archer Mayor's long-running series featuring Joe Gunther who, through the years, has graduated from being a police officer in Brattleboro, Vermont, to his current position as head of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation.

A Brattleboro low-life named Wayne Castine is brutally murdered. Castine has a reputation as a child molester and no one is mourning his passing. Still, the case gets handed off to the VBI and Joe's team begins an exhaustive investigation that comes to focus on the members of a highly dysfunctional Brattleboro family.

At the same time, Gunther's new girlfriend, Lyn Silva, is still reeling from bad news that Joe brought her at the end of the previous book. Lyn's family had long believed that her father and brother had died in a storm at sea. But Joe discovered their fishing boat, which was not at the bottom of the sea after all. It now appears that the father and brother may have been engaged in some sort of criminal enterprise. Lyn is shattered by the news and begins her own investigation, determined to discover the truth about her father and brother.

Joe is torn between his responsibility to the investigation and his affection for Lyn, and he winds up alternating back and forth between the investigation in Vermont and Lyn's crusade up in Maine. Surprisingly, for someone who has been so responsible through the first nineteen books, Gunther winds up slighting his obligation to his team at the VBI and leaving the team somewhat rudderless while he rushes to Lyn's assistance. The reader is left to wonder whether this division of his attention will allow one or both of the investigations to be compromised.

This has always been one of my favorite series, but I confess that this was not one of my favorite books in it. It was somewhat jarring to see Joe acting in such an uncharacteristic fashion, and personally I am not nearly as fond of his new love interest as I was of his long-running girlfriend, Gail.

In attempting to uncover the truth about what happened to her father and brother, Lyn acts in ways that often strain credulity, and on several occasions behaves stupidly. It's like the horror movie where the nubile young blonde who's at home alone goes down into the dark basement in the middle of the night when a child of five knows that Freddy Krueger will be hiding behind the damned furnace. By the second or third time Lyn did something like this, I was beginning to lose patience.

That said, this is still a good read, and the rest of the cast more than makes up for the difficulty that one might have in warming up to Lyn Silva. If Mayor had dropped the second story line, relegated Lyn to a member of the supporting cast, and concentrated more on the investigation of Castine's murder, it would have been even better.

I've liked this series since I stumbled onto them in a small VT bookstore 15 or so years ago. I like the area and the genuine aura matched with the step by step police work involved. But it all really boils down to Joe Gunther and the relationships that he's built and lost over the years. His team has grown up with him as the father figure despite all the bureaucratic turmoil they've been through. There are few characters I prefer to sit down and catch up with. All that said, I think there's been a lot of travel for Joe of late that can be a little distracting. I'm not looking for a closed room scenario, but I like the whole local VT flavor to the series. Some of the important plot lines are running from book to book now too. There's a question at the end of the book that I'm sure will be wrapped up in a future book, but I'm not that big a fan of teaser's like that. I'm very happy with the book as a whole and look forward to the next one eagerly. I have to admit though that I hope the series returns a little more to it's familar haunts.

Who doesn't like Archer Mayor's writing? I'll leave the reviews to the other commentors. However I will say that I wish Mr, Mayor would get Joe and Gail back together!!! and remember folks, it's just a story, Personally I think the series is great!!

Love Archer Mayor's Joe Gunther Series set in Brattleboro, Vt of which i have been thru. I have all of his Joe Gunther Series and enjoy reading them all.
Even have several signed by Mr. Mayor.

I was disappointed with Mayor's last few books, so it is good to see him back in form in "The Price of Malice." What pleases me is that he goes back to telling the story strictly from the point of view of the VBI (Vermont Bureau of Investigation) folk--Joe and his team--rather than switching to the point of view of the bad guys every now and then. While I am not in favor of formulaic writing, Mayor had a good thing going without putting us in the criminals' heads, a choice that I felt weakened his overall effort.

The plots this time around are engaging and not forced as they occasionally seem with Mayor. The murder plotline is puzzling and the subplot of Lyn getting into difficulties and needing Joe's help adds some tension to the book. The resolutions have some reasonable action scenes. I didn't like it that the denouement of the murder case occurs in a conversation between Joe and Lyn, however. That seems a weak device for wrapping up the details that were unrelated to Lyn.

One of the things I enjoyed about this book was seeing Joe get a little stressed about juggling his professional duties and personal interests. This time around not too much time is spent on Joe's romance, which I appreciated, since sometimes Mayor doesn't get the romantic scenes quite right in my opinion. I am still not missing Gail in the least. Another nice surprise is seeing Sammie interact in a new way. Vermont remains a great backdrop for the story, as always.

Overall, I looked forward to picking up this book again each time I had to put it down for real life, which is a measure of how good a book is in my mind.

This pulp unfolds like a black and white grade B noir movie from the 50"s. The characters are finely drawn and vivid. Willy Kunkle is a long time cop who knows the score. He wears the risk and scars of street violence as a bum useless left paw that he keeps religiously stuffed in his pocket. The book opens with Willy's powerful right mit stroking the fine derriere of his partner and lover -- a hottie known as Sammie. With a few masterful brush strokes Archer Mayor, the reigning king of New England noir pulp sets the scene. He nails it . Right down to the indigenous vernacular architecture constructed in the Victorian hey dey of New England manufacturing; and now the tired -old northern slums of low down white trash. Our mutilated corpse floating in a pool of his own congealed blood in the white trash hovel is a "kid diddler". No body in town is sad to see him dead. Joe Gunther needs to come in and sort out the pieces of the puzzle. Joe Gunther is old school like Jack Webb playing Sergeant Friday in original DRAGNET; and not some stinking chatty Kathy yuppy comic like Dan Ackroyd in the re-make. Reticent, circumspect, steadfast-- representing the greatest generation. Joe has a divided mind though; his first long-time babe took off like a jack rabbit because being a cop wife sucks. Now Joe flapped his lips to his shack-up puss. He told his chick-- maybe your father and brother didnt drown at sea like noble fisherman afterall; maybe they were caught up with mobsters. So she went running like her pants were on fire up to Gloucester, Mass. Can Joe Gunther solve the case of the mutilated kid diddler with a divided mind? Can Archer Mayor smoothly and successfully integrate 2 plot lines in his pot-boiler? My money is on AM-- (literally) cause I paid $25. Tune in and Buk Guru will give you the final word-- but; liking it so far. No artsy, ethereal prose; but good workmanlike craft from a forensic everyman in a police procedural. OK AM-- so I've crowned you king of blue collar bards; but, on page 108 you use "odorous (sic)" to describe a pizza box crushed by the big mitt of Willy Kunkle . You and your editor mean odiferous. Buk Guru is giving you a pass on lack of soaring, ethereal prose; but you can't make up words and I do hold you to more than a Brattleboro, Vt. junior college standard of literacy. That said the plot is humming along; and New England atmosphere is realistic and well drawn. But I hope there are no more distracting vocab errors that a clever junior in high school would catch. So here's the deal. At page 187 AM is successfully juggling 2 plots. This reminds me of the TV show DETROIT 1-8-7 with Michael Imperioli. This show religiously executes 2 plots. It is a way to introduce multiple characters, and speed up the action. This is a statement on our modern state of consciousness-- because of constant dopamine shots from internet and cell phone most people like their thinking shallow. Count me in. Also, Joe is a flawed hero. He is slipping. He knows it is unethical and morally wrong to allow his shack-up puss's problems to interfere with his official case; yet he is drawn like a moth to a candle. This is working too. Our detectives are flawed; right down to Sherlock Holmes shooting up his 7% solution. Joe is following this venerable tradition. But this pulp gets tied up in a neat bow too fast; wham bam thank you mam. So the mystery in Vermont involves a bunch of amoral, dysfunctional trailer park white trash. There is a healthy heaping of multi-generational adultery and felonious fornication. Tacky. Joe Gunther abandons and goes A.W.O.L on his squad so they mess up and get seriously injured and inflict serious hurt on the public. Meanwhile big shot Gunther goes off the books and uses his police contacts to play Sir Galahad in Maine. While drawing state pay he is off in Maine solving a cold case for the sole purpose of scoring some hot puss off his girl friend. This is pathetic. This is #13 in the Joe Gunther series. Buk Guru counsels that Joe should put in for retirement and A.M. should give the series a dirt nap. All mystery series must end. Both the author and his hero have lost their way.