BRATTLEBORO — Get the lowdown on Marked Man, the latest novel featuring fictional detective Joe Gunther on Saturday, Oct. 2 at Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St.
Author Archer Mayor will be available to meet and greet from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., on the plaza in front of the library. Copies of his 32nd mystery, will be available for sale and signing from Everyone's Books.
In Marked Man, Mayor juggles several plotlines.
A year after the death of affluent Nathan Lyon from natural causes while under hospice care, a medical student determines that he was strangled, prompting Gunther to launch a murder inquiry.
The eccentric Lyon had most of his family, and thus most of those with an obvious motive to kill him, living together in a huge home that also housed several stores.
As Gunther tries to find clues so long after the murder, a second member of the Lyon clan dies, this time from an apparently accidental fall.
Meanwhile, private investigator Sally Kravitz is retained by Lyon's daughter-in-law, who suspects an employee is stealing from her business.
Finally, two Mafia hit men are trying to identify the person who ordered a killing that one of them admitted to and did time for but now claims not to have committed.
Gunther's case-solving prowess has appeared in books annually since 1988. The series routinely gathers high praise from such sources as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker, with books often appearing on annual 10-best lists.
The series is also popular with fellow mystery writers. Louise Penny says, “As a longtime fan of Archer Mayor, and Gunther, I say Bravo, and keep them coming!”
Described by the Chicago Tribune as “the best police procedurals being written in America,” Mayor loosely bases his novels on his actual experience in the field. He has served as a firefighter/EMT and a police officer, and continues to work as a death investigator for Vermont's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
The program is free and open to the public and is accessible to people in wheelchairs. For more information, visit www.brookslibraryvt.org or call 802-254-5290.