A Dry and Thirsty Ground - Hardcover

Weiss, Mike

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312069561 ISBN 13: 9780312069568

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1992

In a California mountain town attempting to clear his friend of murder charges, Ben Henry faces the animosity of the tight-lipped townfolk and a life-threatening forest fire

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From Publishers Weekly:

Heading toward Big Sur to rescue his oldest pal from an ax murder charge, San Francisco PI Ben Henry finds two raging forest fires, a xenophobic mountain clan, marijuana farming, a retarded boy who wants to play Hawk to Ben's Spenser, a nurse suspected of euthanasia--even romance. Sounds promising, but Edgar winner Weiss ( Double Play ) has hung his tale on an ecological hook (managing forests with controlled burns by local landowners) that sometimes engenders tedium. Excellent descriptive passages and some engrossing scenes--fighting the fire, visiting a marijuana magnate's high-tech operation--do not compensate for didacticism, uneven characterization and portentous pronouncements ("He was wicked, but I didn't think he was evil"). Those who persevere, however, will enjoy a gratifying wrap-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

When Paul Richards gets arrested for planting an axe in his bullying backwoods neighbor Rich Hanna's head, he calls an old friend, Bay Area hackie Ben Henry (No Go on Jackson Street, 1987), now licensed as a private eye, up to the mountains to investigate. All the obligingly obvious potential killers in the Scottsburg landscape--a land-poor Esalen medicine man, a euthanasic nurse, Hanna's hardscrabble relatives--are upstaged by a presumably felonious forest fire, Lost Sam, that rages throughout the story and provides an appropriately haunting ending. Ben's detection and love interest are nothing special, but the Hanna family turns out to be a lot more interesting than you'd expect from the modest trappings. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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