Joe Gunther mysteries
1) Open Season
Lt. Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, Vermont, police force has a serious problem: in a community where a decade could pass without a single murder, the body count is suddenly mounting. Innocent citizens are being killed―and others set up―seemingly orchestrated by a mysterious ski-masked man.
Signs suggest that a three-year-old murder trial might lie at the heart of things, but it's a case that many in the department would prefer remained
...2) Borderlines
Lieutenant Joe Gunther is in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom investigating a minor embezzling case. It's a pleasant distraction and a chance to reconnect with old friends, but when a house fire reveals itself to be arson, compounded by murder, Gunther can't help but investigate. He quickly finds himself enmeshed in a web of animosity between put-upon townspeople, the state police, angry parents, and members of a reclusive sect.
Murder follows
...When the body of a fast-living young stockbroker is found in a shallow grave, suspicion first falls on a cuckolded policeman. Lieutenant Joe Gunther investigates the increasingly bizarre details of the crime, but he's too far behind events to prevent a second murder. Indeed, whoever is responsible always seems to be a few steps ahead, as if there's a leak in the police force. Sweltering August heat does nothing to calm the increasingly agitated
...When a reclusive market gardener's death proves to stem from a twenty-year-old bullet wound, Lieutenant Joe Gunther is presented with a very cold homicide to solve. But who was the victim exactly?
A deeply private man eking out an ascetic existence from a hardscrabble mountain field, Abraham Fuller was virtually unknown to his neighbors, in the manner of someone pursuing more than mere solitude. The discovery of a bag full of unmarked bills
...When Gail Zigman, town selectwoman and Joe Gunther's companion of many years, is raped, Gunther finds himself caught between the media, local politicians, and a network of well-meaning victims' rights advocates as he tries to put his own feelings aside and follow a trail of evidence. Every lead points to a single, obvious suspect, but is the evidence too perfect?
Risking his friendship with Gail, the respect of his peers, and his own life,
...A brutal home invasion shocks Brattleboro's small Asian community, but no one is talking. Undeterred, Joe Gunther digs deeper and discovers a cross-border smuggling route carrying drugs, contraband, and illegal aliens into and out of Canada. Operating below the radar for years, competition between underworld rivals is bringing it into the light with deadly consequences.
International jurisdiction is a complicated matter, and in the pursuit
...A small girl brings Joe Gunther a bird's nest—made partially of human hair. In the search to match a body—and an identity—to the hair's owner, Joe comes across an unexplained death, a grisly murder, and a sudden disappearance. All seem to be entangled in a puzzling web of municipal corruption, blackmail, and industrial espionage. A shell-shocked World War II veteran nicknamed the Ragman may hold the key to it all—but only
...Joe Gunther is sent to the neighboring town of Bellows Falls to investigate harassment allegations against a fellow officer. But as Gunther doggedly pursues the truth, what begins as a seemingly open-and-shut case starts to look more and more like a frame job, and he soon finds himself feeling around the edges of a statewide drug distribution network.
As always, Vermont itself is a major character in Mayor's writing, with Bellows Falls standing
...