Customer Reviews

Tropical Heat

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I can only assume that those professional reviewers who reviewed this novel were not in any way familiar with the setting that Miller uses for this novel. The Hopewell of the WWII years and the post-war period in no way resembles the one depicted in this book. As someone who grew up in the Petersburg-Hopewell-Fort Lee (then Camp Lee) environs, I am fully aware that Hopewell, far from being a sleepy little rural town, was a thriving manufacturing center with a fully staffed
police department, a good educational system, and law enforcement was not in the hands of a one-man sheriff's department. I picked this up to read because of the local setting and the further I read, the further my jaw dropped.
I can only guess that Mr. Miller picked up on the town name and its proximity to a large military base and wrote his book without doing any actual research.
If one chooses to use an actual locale as the setting for a work of fiction, one is then obligated to maintain the integrity of the setting even though the people and plot are fictional.

I found this book accidentally, what a nice surprise! It's got a little bit of everything, one of the best books I've read in a long time.

Hopewell, Virginia is a sleepy little town where nothing ugly ever happens and race relations seem to be fine. Sheriff A.G. Farrell had planned to stay in the big city but when war broke out, he was asked to serve a term for Sheriff. Twelve years later, he is still the sheriff although he doesn't wear a uniform or carry a badge. He has gotten into a routine and lives up to the town's expectations of him.

A.G.'s complacency is about to be shattered by the scandalous murder of Captain Fitzgerald, a soldier stationed at Ft. Lee. With just a little digging, the sheriff learns that Private Carbone's wife was having an affair with the captain and that the enlisted man possessed the murder weapon. Carbone is arrested for the homicide. A.G. thinks the case is wrapped up a little too neatly but before he can dig any deeper, he meets the captain's wife, a beautiful and seductive woman and begins an affair with her. The unprofessional behavior clouds his judgment so that all his future actions involving the captain's death are skewed by his desire for the lovely widow.

John A. Miller has written a complex and introspective work that reflects the social morals and values of the fifties. The key characters in TROPICAL HEAT are people that are unforgettable. Though one sub-plot add nothing to the main story line, overall the mystery is designed for the reader to see the truth right away, but cleverly executed to keep the audience's attention till the end.

Harriet Klausner