Hour of the Hunter

From Publishers Weekly The author of the J. P. Beaumont series moves into new territory with this mystery that draws on Native American life and lore. Six years in Arizona State Prison have turned convicted rapist/murderer Andrew Carlisle into a killing machine. Along with his student Gary Ladd, former professor Carlisle was accused of killing a Papago Indian girl, and Ladd committed suicide rather than face the charges. Shortly thereafter, when crucial evidence in the case disappeared, Ladd's widow, Diana, and Rita Antone, the murdered girl's grandmother, pressed for Carlisle's conviction. Planning revenge on those who put him behind bars, the newly released sociopath goes on a murder spree as he tracks down Diana. Warned by the clairvoyant Antone of Carlisle's impending assault, Diana marshals her defense forces--including a blind Papago medicine man and a detective with a score to settle with the killer. Leaving a trail of corpses in his wake, cross-dresser Carlisle eludes the police and prepares to victimize his own family. Jance's novel delivers suspense through richly textured layers of flashbacks and gritty characterization, and, although the relationship between the mystical Papago folklore and the rest of the plot is not as clearly developed as readers might wish, it is an intriguing thematic focus for Jance and her fans. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews A hodgepodge hardcover debut in which two Native American medicine men, an Arizona lawman, a young widow and her son, and a Papago basket-weaver/wise woman are inexorably drawn into confrontation with the evil ohb, a university professor-turned- serial-killer, who upended their lives six years before when he tortured and murdered the basket-weaver's granddaughter and then stage-managed a suicide/frame-up for his distraught accomplice Garrison Ladd. Now he's stalking Ladd's widow Diana and son Davy, but his old MO (biting off nipples) used on a new victim has set the sheriff's department on his trail, while his malevolent spirit has energized the Papagos. There will be another murder, an attempted murder, dreams, emanations, and a near-fatal dog- poisoning before everyone converges on the Ladd house for a gruesome resolution. Disconcerting time shifts and a plethora of Papago parables (can anyone outdo Tony Hillerman?) fail to disguise the fact that this is nothing more than potboiler melodrama, with the hapless reader bombarded first by the lurid, then by the mystical. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.