Seventh Inning Stretch

When the leader of a gang of scam artists and grifters who have been cheating the citizens of Rutherford suddenly turns up dead, detective Jake Hines embarks on an investigation into the murder, a crime that could be only the beginning of a bloodbath. By the author of Triple Play.

Gunn fashions a yarn as taut as a short story with all the tension of a clenched fist in her fifth Jake Hines police procedural, after last year's superb Six-Pound Walleye. It's impossible to exaggerate her narrative skill. A bizarre crime two dead men turn up stuffed into a garbage barrel, both brutally beaten and one with a wad of cash stuck in his mouth launches the chief of detectives of the Rutherford, Minn., PD on an investigation that gets only more confusing. Throughout, the reader can't help feeling that Jake and his colleagues will never be able to crack this case, and in fact, the author doesn't dot the last i until the final page. Gunn's concept of the police as an efficient team, each member supplying a piece of the puzzle, helps make this a superior series. In his role as narrator Jake naturally assumes center stage, but he's no Herculean mastermind who figures everything out with his little gray cells. Rather, he's a born leader whose will to solve a case supplies the momentum for his people. Down to earth, haunted by a very credible past, Jake is as real as the chilly Minnesota world around him. Providing domestic interest is his lover, Trudy Hanson, with whom he's bought a farm halfway between their jobs in different cities. The conflicts produced by the financial strain of a mortgage and property repairs serve to add to Trudy and Jake's humanity. Gunn just keeps getting better with each new installment in the series.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Solving crimes, as portrayed on television, is exciting stuff with lots of car chases and rooftop scrambles. But in reality police work is much more mundane, combining old-fashioned detection (interviewing witnesses, chasing dead-end leads, waiting endlessly for crime lab results, etc.) with a bit of luck. One of the best writers of police procedurals today is Gunn, whose "Jake Hines" series (Triple Play, Six-Pound Walleye) takes readers step by step through the intricate process from the discovery of the crime to its solution. In her fifth Hines mystery, the protagonist is still trying to adjust to his administrative duties as chief of detectives while coping with a rash of scams that have hit Rutherford, MN. When the leader of the grifters is found beaten to death, his body stuffed into a dumpster on top of another naked corpse, a string of minor felonies becomes more tangled, especially when it is discovered that the garbage can had come from the backyard of one of Hines's detectives. At the same time, Hines and girlfriend Trudy (a crime scene expert) struggle with the financial and emotional realities of home ownership. Gunn's smooth mix of plausible plot, realistic police details, and very human characters make for a pleasurable read. For most mystery collections. Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

This fifth Jake Hines novel is the best yet in an outstanding series. Rutherford, Minnesota, Chief of Detectives Hines, taking advantage of a crime-free period by trying to close some cold cases, is interrupted when a severely abused body is discovered stuffed inside a trash barrel. Struggling to adjust to his new, administrative position, Jake attempts to delegate investigative tasks to his detectives--including the quiet, mysterious Bo Dooley--but he has a hard time not getting involved personally. When it turns out the crime-scene trash barrel was stolen from Bo's house, a dark cloud of suspicion hangs over the detective and his drug-addicted wife. In another subplot, Jake's girlfriend, crime lab technician Trudy Hanson, is haggling with two men over renovating Jake and Trudy's rundown farmhouse. Trudy, uncharacteristically portrayed as shallow and unlikable in Gunn's last outing, is redeemed here--once again the strong woman readers admired from previous stories. Gunn's skill in character development is equaled by her ability to build suspense while accumulating procedural detail. Fans of Michael McGarrity's Kevin Kerney series are bound to find similarities between Hines and Kerney, both hard-working, no-nonsense cops who would rather be digging for clues than shuffling paper. Jenny McLarin
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