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April 10
Hardback
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Highway Robbery
by John Billheimer
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Reviewed by Craig Beresford
Road construction turns up the remains of a murder victim, and transportation
engineer Owen Allison returns home to West Virginia to investigate. Owen's
working as a consultant in San Francisco, but comes at his mother's request.
She believes that the body might belong to Owen's father, a state highway
commissioner who disappeared 35 years ago following a dam burst. He was
assumed to have perished in the flood, but Ruth Allison fears that his
enemies within the state political structure and among some dishonest
construction companies may have done the job themselves. When further murders
start taking place during Owen's visit, he suspects that his mother may be
right, and takes it upon himself to work out the mysteries old and new.
Highway Robbery is hugely successful, both as a mystery story and a novel.
Much of the book ignores the investigation to focus on Owen's reaction to
coming home, and on his attempts to renew or patch up relationships with his
family, his ex-wife, and his high school friends and sweetheart. For example,
his brother George, the current highway commissioner, is having troubles
personal and professional. Owen intervenes on both fronts, helping him
confront his alcoholism and deal with corruption among the Highway Commission
and the politicians who oversee it, as well as some earnest but perhaps not
completely ethical environmentalists who are protesting the construction.
Owen's oldest childhood friend, Bobby, is also having a difficult time, and
Owen is able to lend valuable support there as well. These and other personal
interludes are touching and realistic, and help flesh out Owen's character.
The West Virginia setting is evoked nicely, with only a few elements (such as
a reference to the ubiquity of "Take Me Home, Country Roads," John Denver's
ode to the state's beauty, on the radio) seeming heavy-handed. The book even
manages to send its heroes on a whitewater rafting expedition, which it uses
to advance several of the story's plot threads.
But the detective novel elements of the story are not ignored; the puzzle at
the book's heart is well-crafted. In the best mystery tradition, the
This terrific first novel is an example of a "regional"
mystery--a book which makes the setting a very strong element of the story.
What other regional mysteries have you enjoyed?
Join the discussion on:
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solution, when it is revealed, is surprising yet, on reflection, inevitable.
This is true also of the way George's and Bobby's troubles are worked out,
and Owen's romantic entanglements with ex-wife, ex-sweetheart, and an
interested librarian provide some comic relief that doesn't hurt the overall
serious tone of the book. Along the way, Owen also clears up some of his own
mysteries, past and present, which helps him leave a lasting impression on
the reader.
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