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4.5
I really love the Hazard and Somerset series. The police procedural/mystery aspects are well done, the characters are three dimensional and likeable, despite their various issues; there’s humor, banter, romance – they’re really the whole package. However, there’s also emotional drama, which is my least favorite part, and the part that sometimes makes me reticent to start a new book. Thankfully the emotional overload wasn’t exceptionally high in this installment. The main point of contention is Colt’s intense and thoroughly irrational hatred of John Henry and John Henry’s unresolved childhood desperate need to have everyone like him. Hazard tries to tell him that it has nothing to do with him personally, that Colt’s projecting, redirecting, displacing; and it doesn’t seem like it should be that hard for J-H to connect the dots; but he literally doesn’t until Colt spells it out when all is resolved at the end. The other emotional drama involved Emery and John having different parenting styles and both, despite conscious awareness, following in the dysfunctional footsteps of their respective parents. On a positive note, I thought they did a reasonably good job of staying connected and communicating.The mystery involves the killing of the father of one of Colt’s friend Ash’s family’s friends. If that sounds confusing it’s because it’s not clear how anyone was friends with these wacky, unpleasant people or how John’s mother is supposedly friends with one of them, which is how Hazard and Somers get invited to murder weekend. Then Naomi and the Ozark volunteers get involved and its old home week. But the piece of this installment that I had the hardest time with involved Colt’s biological father. Danny Lee Ballantyne’s back in town with his freshly healing meth sores wanting to start trouble and capitalize on his son. Probably for the first and only time ever, Glenn Somersworth and I are sympatico. Glenn, the Mayor, tells his son, the Chief of Police to “do something about Danny Lee”. This is not a difficult thing to think through. Even if Danny’s threat held water (which from a legal standpoint, Colt is 15 he has some say, and the ability to press charges), Chief of Police and Mayor vs meth head. No one ever said life was fair. Do something about him J-H. A LOT of drama could have been avoided.
