45. Wolf Lake: a novel by John Verdon

#5 Dave Gurney, upstate New York detective
listened on Audible
2016, Counterpoint
375 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 8/22/16
Goodreads rating:  3.92 - 562 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting: Contemporary Adirondacks resort during a blizzard

First line/s:  "The porcupine's behavior was making no sense.  There was something deeply disturbing about its lack of logical purpose - disturbing at last to Dave Guerney."

My comments:  Number five in the Dave Guerney series did not disappoint, but I don't think any will affect me like the first, which I thought was absolutely brilliant. Intricate mystery solver, decorated ex-NY state police detective now-retired, takes on the mystery of why four people could commit suicide in the exact same manner after having the exact same frightening dream.  The cast of characters is not really large, so solving the mystery isn't hugely difficult if the reader's paying close attention.  Good story, I gobbled it up in two long sittings.  The reader (I listened to this one) was excellent. The setting is during a blizzard in the Adirondacks, which I'm happy to read about as long as I'm not enduring the actuality. A great part of this particular novel is about Gurney's wife, Madeline, who I've never really felt drawn to (I don't really understand their relationship at all, or her weird, silent attitude towards her husband and anything he does that she doesn't agree with).  However, she's drawn me in - a tiny bit more - in this story.  Now I have to wait another year for then next sequel!

Goodreads synopsis:  Could a nightmare be used as a murder weapon? That’s the provocative question confronting Gurney in the thrilling new installment in this series of international bestsellers. The former NYPD star homicide detective is called upon to solve a baffling puzzle: Four people who live in different parts of the country and who seem to have little in common, report having had the same dream—a terrifying nightmare involving a bloody dagger with a carved wolf’s head on the handle. All four are subsequently found with their wrists cut — apparent suicides — and the weapon used in each case was a wolf’s head dagger.
       Police zero in quickly on Richard Hammond, a controversial psychologist who conducts hypnotherapy sessions at a spooky old Adirondack inn called Wolf Lake Lodge. It seems that each of the victims had gone there to meet with Hammond shortly before turning up dead. 
       Troubled by odd holes in the official approach to the case, Gurney begins his own investigation — an action that puts him in the crosshairs of not only an icy murderer and the local police but the darkest corner of the federal government. As ruthless as the blizzard trapping him in the sinister eeriness of Wolf Lake, Gurney’s enemies set out to keep him from the truth at any cost — including an all-out assault on the sanity of his beloved wife Madeleine.
       With his emotional resources strained to the breaking point, Gurney must throw himself into a deadly battle of wits with the most frightening opponent he has ever faced.
       Wolf Lake is the page-turning new work by a writer hailed by the New York Times as “masterly” — and it furthers the adventures of Dave Gurney, a detective reviewers have compared to Sherlock Holmes.

Series Synopsis - John Verdon

Jon Verdon's writing is mesmerizing.

Dave Gurney
Retired NYPD homicide detective now living in upstate New York with his wife, Madeline. I don't know why he retired...very young...because all he really wants to do is solve mysteries.  He's quite brilliant when it comes to solving any puzzling murder, although his wife is never very happy when he takes them on - after all, he's supposed to be retired!

1 - Think of a Number (2010) Mark Mellery, an old college friend of Dave Gurney, approaches him with a perplexing problem.  He's been receiving threatening poems in the mail.....

2 - Shut Your Eyes Tight (2011) Beautiful Jillian Perry is discovered, by her new husband, decapitated at her own wedding reception.  This one's a real puzzler...

3 - Let the Devil Sleep (2012) Gurney is talked into helping the daughter (Kim) of a friend as she prepares a tv show about families left behind after their loved ones are killed in unsolved murders.

4 - Peter Pan Must Die (2014) Gurney's annoying sometimes-sidekick, Jack Hardwick, pulls him into  a murder that has already been "solved" - wrongly.  Kay Spalter supposedly shot her husband, a senator-to-be, as he was about to give the eulogy at his mother's funeral.

John Verdon's webpage
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55. Peter Pan Must Die - John Verdon

#4 David Gurney

2014 Crown Publishers

442 pgs.

Adult murder mystery

Finished 9/5/2014

Goodreads rating: 3.90

My rating:  4.5 Loved it

TPPL

Comtemporary upstate New York

  

1st sentence/s: (from prologue)  "There was a time when he dreamt of being the head of  a great nation.  A nuclear power."
(from Ch. 1) "In the rural Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, August was an unstable month, lurching back and forth between the bright glories of July and the gray squalls of the long winter to come."

My comments:  Ah, yes, another satisfying John Verdon mystery.  I love his intricate plotlines and the way you really do need to keep guessing the whole way.  I'm still unhappy with the relationship between Gurney and his wife, Madeleine.  It's not like any relationship I can relate to.....and I guess it's because I don't really like her.....at all!  I realized it's not a major part of the story, but it is a large minor part (ah, semantics!).  This creepy killer reminds me of some of the characters that M. E. Kerr has written about in her fabulous YA stories a few years back - not at all "normal" or "average" in appearance.  Which keeps me thinking about the evil in this guy - how much does odd appearance mold our personality?

Goodreads book summary: In John Verdon’s most sensationally twisty novel yet, ingenious puzzle solver Dave Gurney brings his analytical brilliance to a shocking murder that couldn’t have been committed the way the police say it was.
          The daunting task that confronts Gurney, once the NYPD’s top homicide cop: determining the guilt or innocence of a woman already convicted of shooting her charismatic politician husband -- who was felled by a rifle bullet to the brain while delivering the eulogy at his own mother’s funeral. 
          Peeling back the layers, Gurney quickly finds himself waging a dangerous battle of wits with a thoroughly corrupt investigator, a disturbingly cordial mob boss, a gorgeous young temptress, and a bizarre assassin whose child-like appearance has earned him the nickname Peter Pan.
          Startling twists and turns occur in rapid-fire sequence, and soon Gurney is locked inside one of the darkest cases of his career – one in which multiple murders are merely the deceptive surface under which rests a scaffolding of pure evil. Beneath the tangle of poisonous lies, Gurney discovers that the truth is more shocking than anyone had imagined.          And the identity of the villain at the mystery’s center turns out to be the biggest shock of all

8. Let the Devil Sleep - John Verdon

Dave Guerney #3
2012, Crown Publishers
Murder Mystery for Adults
Finished March 10, 2013
Goodreads Rating: 3.80
My rating:  4/ Liked it a lot
Acquired: TPPL
Setting: Upstate New York, end of winter/beginning of spring
First Sentence/s: "She had to be stopped.  Hints had not worked.  Subtle nudges had been ignored.  Firmer action was called for.  Something dramatic and unmistakable, accompanied  by a clear explanation."

My Comments:  It took me awhile to get through this, but I had a lot going on and very little time to read. Another good tale from a cracker-jack storyteller. I love the wonderful words he uses, very upper-end vocabulary, which might actually be off-putting to some readers. I actually had some insight to solving the crime (but not the WHO part) way earlier on than in his first two books, but the resolution was still very satisfying. Great author - hope he's fast at work on another Dave Guerney. I need more insight into the relationship Dave has with his wife, Madeline -- I can't quite get a handle on it...

There's one passage that I loved...Guerney is talking to his difficult sort-of-friend, a curmudgeon cop who helps him out once in awhile - begrudgingly.  

"Gurney though back to the request he'd made that morning.  'The first one being the history of Mr. Meese-Montague?'"     'Actually, Mr. Montague-Meese, but more about that anon.'     'Anon?'     'Yeah, anon.  It means "soon."  One of William Shakespeare's favortie words.  Whenever he meant "soon," he said "anon."  I'm expanding my vocabulary so I can speak with greater confidence to intellectual dicks like you.'"

And here's another that made me think...and exemplifies the kind of writing that you discover, once-in-awhile, in Verdon's writing:

     "How bland the morning felt --- in the way that mornings often felt bland, unthreatening, uncomplicated.  Each morning --- assuming that some minimal intervention of sleep had demarcated it from the day before --- created the illusion of a new beginning, a kind of freedom from the past.  Humans, it seemed, were truly diurnal creatures, not simply in the sense of being non-nocturnal but in the sense of being designed for living one day at a time --- one separated day at a time. Uninterrupted consciousness could tear a man to pieces.  No wonder the CIA used sleep deprivation as a torture.  A mere seventy-two hours of uninterrupted living --- seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking --- could make a man wish he were dead." 

Goodreads Review:  The most decorated homicide detective in NYPD history, Dave Gurney is still trying to adjust to his life of quasi-retirement in upstate New York when a young woman who is producing a documentary on a notorious murder spree seeks his counsel.  Soon after, Gurney begins feeling threatened: a razor-sharp hunting arrow lands in his yard, and he narrowly escapes serious injury in a booby-trapped basement.  As things grow more bizarre, he finds himself reexamining the case of The Good Shepherd, which ten years before involved a series of roadside shootings and a rage-against-the-rich manifesto.  The killings ceased, and a cult of analysis grew up around the case with a consensus opinion that no one would dream of challenging  -- no one, that is, but Dave Gurney.  

Mocked even by some who’d been his supporters in previous investigations, Dave realizes that the killer is too clever to ever be found.  The only gambit that may make sense is also the most dangerous – to make himself a target and get the killer to come to him.

To survive, Gurney must rely on three allies: his beloved wife Madeleine, impressively intuitive and a beacon of light in the gathering darkness; his de-facto investigative “partner” Jack Hardwick, always ready to spit in authority’s face but wily when it counts; and his son Kyle, who has come back into Gurney’s life with surprising force, love and loyalty

50. Shut Your Eyes Tight - John Verdon

Dave Gurney #2
2011, Crown Publishers
509 pgs.
Goodreads Rating 3.88
My rating:  I liked it a whole lot (4)

First sentence:  "He stood in front of the mirror and smiled with deep satisfaction at his own smiling reflection."
Setting:  Contemporary New York state, in the Catskills near Albany.

First impressions upon finishing:  Another great, complicated mystery from John Verdon. It did seem a little extra long (509 pages), and the weird tension in Gurney's marriage is a little difficult to picture. High-level vocabulary, especially at the beginning kept me on my toes. I've definitely become a John Verdon/Dave Gurney fan.

Dave Gurney, retired NYC homicide detective, is pulled into his second "consultant" investigation since his retirement at age 48.  This does not please his wife, Madeleine, who wants him to stay completely retired.  However, he has an uncanny ability to sniff out the questions that need answering and putting pieces of weird, seemingly unsolvable puzzles together.

This weird, unsolvable puzzle begins with the murder of a brand-new wife, beautiful Jillian Perry, at her own wedding reception.  The wedding was at her new husband, Scott Ashcroft's, lavish country estate.   She went into a small cottage on the premises to encourage their gardener, Hector Flores, to attend the reception.  When she didn't reappear her husband entered the cottage and discovered his decapitated wife sitting at a small table with her head staring back at her body.  

The investigation takes Gurney back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth once again between his own home in Walnut Crossing to the site of the murder in 
Tambury, into Manhattan, and to meetings with police and the DA in Albany.  

Complicated, interesting, and thought-provoking.  It took me a lot of 30-40 page sittings, but was very worth it.  One word I can associate with this author: CLEVER!!

17. Think of a Number - John Verdon

1st in a series:  Dave Gurney, Retired NYC Homicide, Upstate NY
2010, Crown Publishers
BC Library
418 pgs.
Just wonderful writing and storytelling (5)
1st sentence/s:  "Jason Strunk was by all accounts an inconsequential fellow, a bland thirty-something, nearly invisible to his neighbors --- and apparently inaudible as well, since none could recall a single specific thing he'd ever said."
Setting:  Upstate NYC, somewhere in the Catskills near Cooperstown, winter.

This is John Verdon's first book, ever.  It looks like he was a big wig in an advertising firm in NYC, which doesn't even sound like it might be related to homicide investigations.  Well, I don't know what he's best at...intricate, clever storytelling, or writing beautiful prose.  He even used a couple of words that were new to my word bank!  He's created a fascinating protagonist and allows the reader to get completely into his head.  There's an element of psychology in the story that I usually wrinkle my nose at, but this was fascinating.  I couldn't wait to curl up with this story.

Dave Gurney's old college friend, Mark Mellery, discovers that they live fairly near each other in the Catskills of upper New York state and comes to visit him with a perplexing problem.  He's been receiving weird poems in the mail - poems that are threatening and ominous.  Gurney is a retired police wiz from New York City who has an uncanny knack of putting clues together. His relationship with his wife, Madeline, is a bit rocky.  She's ready for him to retire, not be pulled back into his old life, where is becomes obsessed with his cases.  They're only in their late forties, and do seem to love each other.  There's background "stuff" though - a previous marriage with one grown son for him and a son who died in an accident at three years old for the two of them.

The mystery is complex and fascinating! 

The second book in the series, Shut Your Eyes Tight, has already been published and the third, Let the Devil Sleep, will come out in July.  Can't wait to read them.