Cal Claxton needed a vacation and he got a double bonus—a fishing paradise at the Oregon coast and the company of his daughter Claire. But these were expected. Neither expected the hidden bonus. It found them and it was a hog. They were fly-fishing for steelhead on the Millicoma River when Claire hooked the corpse of Howard Coleman—a corpse that drowned from execution, not by accident.

This is another gem in Warren C. Easley’s series The Cal Claxton Oregon Mysteries.[1] This story is different, though. Cal has an assistant—whom he loves—to follow him along the twists and turns leading into harm’s way. And this time, there is already a convicted murderer in prison. He’s Kenny Sanders, barely an adult, but 4-years ago, he was tried as one—and convicted, and sentenced to life.

There you have it. Vacation interrupted. Father and daughter agree with Kenny’s grandma. Kenny is innocent. He has no place in a den of gangs where not joining up will get you dead. But what does the corpse of working man Howard Coleman have to do with the corpse that Kenny allegedly created when he was sixteen? That lost soul was a rich man—a pillar of the Coos Bay community.

That’s how the puzzle began. So the Claxton family decided to spend the rest of their vacation by solving one new murder, to solve the old one. From the start, risk confronted them. They found two too many murdered bodies in paradise—and two more, theirs, are in the queue for next victims. Synchronicity had put them in line.

Cal and his daughter are great-outdoor enthusiasts who are serious in their passion. Claire is an ecologist who is studying the gulf oil spill to quantify and ameliorate the environmental damage. Cal, the avid fisherman, could not be more proud of his daughter’s endeavors. As usual in novels by Warren C. Easley, the setting is crucial, and “place” becomes its own character, a thing of beauty and a place of perfect danger.

Straight out of our reality here in Oregon, the chief political issue in Coos County is the “LNG” debate. That is, shall government green light trains to haul fracked liquefied natural gas to the Coos Bay docks for shipment to China and the rest of the world. Do you think this “fracture factor” relates to the plot? You bet it does. Polluters and Big Money are partners shaking hands. Both hands are rich, both are dirty. This mystery, however, is etched on a roulette of synchronicity, and the motive might be many things. The facts are hidden by four-years. The last clue is camouflaged in plain sight. Strap into the logging rig and hold on.

This is a superb who-dun-it. Mr. Easley transports us to another Oregon paradise—the state’s largest coastal town—a place plenty big enough for a major murder mystery, yet a place not large enough to hide in—neither for the Claxton team to hide from danger, nor big enough for the guilty to escape.

Well done, Mr. Easley.


Cover Image: from the author’s website. Please visit.

[1] https://www.warreneasley.com/