The Surest Poison [Paperback]

Chester D. Campbell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2009

Three seemingly unrelated murders crop up during the investigation of a decade-old chemical dump that plagues a rural community west of Nashville. Sid Chance, a former National Parks ranger whose career as a small town police chief was cut short by malicious accusations of bribery, pursues the case after being coaxed out of self-imposed exile by Jaz LeMieux, a wealthy ex-cop. Is the man responsible for the pollution dead or alive? Who is having Sid tailed and threatened? When Jaz helps with the investigation, she is awakened by an explosion behind her mansion. Is it related to the abduction of her retainers' grandson, or Sid's case? As the tension mounts, Sid finds himself confronting the unsavory people responsible for his past troubles.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Hired to find the company responsible for a 1995 chemical spill that poisoned the land and water of Ashland City, TN, PI Sid Chance discovers delving into the past dredges up old enemies and danger. By the author of the Greg McKenzie series (The Marathon Murders).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Night Shadows Press (April 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 097991678X
• ISBN-13: 978-0979916786
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,485,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

After following a snake-like career path that writhed about from newspapers to magazines to speechwriting to advertising to PR to association management, I settled on novel writing after retirement. I'm having a blast. My PI characters do things I'd never dare attempt. The reviewers love 'em, and so do the fans. Most of my stories are drawn from life, from all the weird and wonderful things that go on around me. Since I've been observing this for the last 85 years, there's no shortage of stuff to draw on.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Surest Poison, March 5, 2009

By 

Gloria Feit (Long Beach, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Surest Poison (Paperback)

Sid Chance is a former member of the Army Special Forces in Vietnam and a former National Parks ranger for eighteen years, as well as a small town police chief for ten, forced out of office when falsely charged with bribery. Never finding who had set out to destroy him, he has taken refuge for the past three years in a rustic cabin [read "no electricity or running water"] fifty miles east of Nashville. As the book opens he finds himself wondering "if he'd made the right decision in leaving. Going back to the type of work he had pursued for more than three decades left him exposed to the same flawed humanity that had chased him up here in the first place." But he is coaxed out of his hermit-like existence by his old friend Jasmine ("Jaz") LeMieux, who has recommended him to a corporate attorney and his client who is facing major financial disaster unless he can be cleared in a chemical pollution case. Sid is hired to find the company which had owned the property previously which, they are convinced, is the true culprit.

Jaz is quite a character, literally and figuratively. She "had the looks and the brains to be whatever she wanted, and she had the money and the contacts to pull it off." Her c.v. include having been a professional boxer, member of the Security Police with the Air Force, cop, board chairman of a major company, and during the course of the book is applying for a p.i. license, the better to enable her to work with Sid, finding she "couldn't resist the lure of the chase." A second story line evolves when Jaz' employees, a couple in their late seventies, plead with Jaz to help when their grandson and his nine-year-old son are threatened. When Sid assists in this effort, it means he must, with misgivings, return for the first time to the small town he had left in disgrace nearly four years earlier.

The author smoothly blends the two investigations being worked on by Sid and Jaz, which is accomplished with a little help from his friends, which include his poker-playing pals, the "Five Felons," comprised of a Metro police sergeant, a retired newspaper crime writer, a former Criminal Court Judge, and a local homicide detective, charmingly named "Bart Masterson." The reader is treated to a good old-fashioned detective story -- and that is intended as very high praise -- with swear words at a minimum, any violence not of the graphic variety, instead a more subtle but no less lethal kind, interspersed with ominous threats, some vague and some pointed.

The title comes from a line by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which "named such things as alcohol and strychnine but concluded: 'the surest poison is time.'" Mr. Campbell has written another terrific novel, one that is recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely and Well-Written Mystery, January 10, 2010

By 

Jaden Terrell "Jaden Terrell" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Surest Poison (Paperback)

This is the first of a new series by Chester Campbell, author of the well-loved Greg McKenzie mysteries. While I enjoy both series, after reading THE SUREST POISON, I realized I enjoy the harder-edged Sid a bit more. Greg and his wife, Jill, are like old friends, while Sid is a hero you can sink your teeth into.

The plot involves an old chemical spill that has very immediate consequences in a small Tennessee town. Although Campbell tackles some timely environmental issues in this book, the message is never preachy and never slows the story.

3.0 out of 5 stars Ok story but didn't keep me enthralled, September 21, 2009

By 

Debbie's World of Books "Debbie's World of Books" (Union City, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Surest Poison (Paperback)

I am having a hard time thinking of how exactly I felt about this book. There was nothing necessarily wrong with it but I have to admit it did not engross me. I actually ended up putting it down and picking it up several times to read other books in between. One factor may have been I did not really find myself caring much about Sid Chance. I found myself thinking several times that for PI most of the deductions and findings seemed to come from the people around him. In fact, Jaz seemed to do most of the work on this case. That said I did like Jaz and it was nice to see a female place a prominent role in cracking this mystery. I think Campbell put together a nice supporting cast that it would be nice to see more of. Maybe Sid will grow on me in the next book.