No Comfort in Victory: A Sheriff Harry Starbranch Mystery
Bean packs a lot into this debut, but little of it resonates. Victory is a little town in Wyoming where sheriff Harry Starbranch, formerly a Denver homicide detective, has come in search of a slower pace: a wish that goes by the boards when a teenage girl is raped and murdered and two dead men are discovered nearby. Initially it looks like a case of cattle rustling that got out of control, with the unfortunate girl being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This tale's undistinguished features are many: rustling isn't especially riveting as a potential crime; every person Harry confides in is a seeming font of wrinkly Western wisdom; the assembled redneck yahoos are out-and-out racist/sexist cretins; and Harry's burdened by the usual romantic angst and demons?in this case, a second shot at romance with an ex-wife, and a recently released killer he once put away. With his studied taste for Western wear and hard liquor, Harry is dogged and competent, but that's about the extent of his appeal.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.