Open Season

This book was a lot better than I expected. I really enjoyed it and will definitely be reading more of the series and looking for other books by Archer Mayor.

Joe Gunther is a police detective that is called to a crime scene where an elderly woman had blasted an intruder with a shotgun. She explained that she had been getting threatening calls and messages left in her house. She called the police but they didn't help. Finally, the man killed her cat in a gruesome way and said the same was going to happen to her. She got her dead husband's old shotgun and was ready when her backdoor opened. After the police investigated the body and discovered his identity the old woman was shocked. She knew the man from when they were on the same Jury. Later, more crimes kept happening where someone from the same jury was set up to look like they did the crime and there was suddenly a lot of reports of a man in a ski mask causing trouble and always connected with that old case. Joe Gunther noticed the trend and started to look into the case where a woman was murdered and a black man had been found guilty of the crime even though he insisted he was innocent. It looked like and open and shut case but when Joe started to look into it himself he realized it was too perfect. When he started questioning the people involved he found a lot of things the police missed or didn't look into. It was starting to look like the police locked up the wrong guy because they were in a hurry to close the case. Gunther soon learned though, that the man in the ski mask wasn't doing this for the innocent man who was locked up. He was after revenge. He wanted the cops to find the real killer.

First in a lengthy series featuring Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, VT police. Nice writing.