Friday's Forgotten Books--"Homicide My Own" by Anne Argula

It is Friday and that means it is time for another edition of “Friday’s Forgotten Books” hosted by Patti Abbott. This time around I am picking the enjoyable and quirky mystery novel, “Homicide My Own” by Anne Argula. The review below came out a few years ago and originally ran at the “Mouth Full of Bullets” zine. A good book worthy of your attention.

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Odd Gunderson and his female partner are officers in Spokane, Washington. The days are boring and neither is a great fan of the city of Spokane. One day, as their shifts end, they are called in to see the Lieutenant. He has a job for them to do and doesn't care that their shift is over.

The job, though time consuming, is simple enough. They are to drive to Shalish Island and pick up a prisoner. One Charles T. Houser, early 30's and a systems analyst, is accused of "unlawful carnal knowledge" in regards to his 14 year old girlfriend, Stacey. He jumped bail and was picked up along with Stacey at a tribal casino. It's going to be a fifteen hour or so round trip if everything goes right and they really don't have a choice.

As expected, things begin to go wrong as soon as they leave and it just gets worse when they arrive on the island. There are numerous complications with the prisoner not to mention Odd's strange obsessions about a nearly 40 year old murder case that is legendary on the island.

The result is a read that becomes a real page turner. Written in a style that is uncommon and rather difficult to explain without quoting large sections of text, the characters take life in few words and become incredibly real. So too are the relationships past and present throughout this 219 page novel. Both cases take on twists and turns that are not obvious to the reader or to the officers involved. And while it seems nothing is happening on one level, on another a lot is happening. Pleasure Boat Studios has a reputation of publishing books that are very good and don't fit the mold. This is another example of that and one that begs to be read.

Homicide My Own

By Anne Argula

Pleasure Boat Studio

2005

Trade Paperback

ISBN # 1-929355-21-1

Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano, Texas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple © 2007, 2010