Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – Bump and Run by Richard Helms

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – Bump and Run by Richard Helms

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Bump and Run: A Wade Durham Novel by Richard Helms

 

Bump and Run (Black Arch Books, August 2025) is the 26^th book by retired clinical/forensic psychologist and college professor Richard Helms. He is the recipient of the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award (twice); the Mystery Readers International Macavity Award; the Short Mystery Fiction Society Derringer Award (twice); the International Thriller Writers Thriller Award; and the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award (twice). His story “See Humble and Die” was featured in Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt’s Best American Mystery Stories of 2020, edited by Otto Penzler and C.J. Box. His short stories have appeared frequently in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, and various anthologies and collections.

Wade Durham of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and part-time race car driver makes his debut here as he investigates the gruesome murder of a one-time football star in the small town of Choctaw. Win Savage had achieved fame through a fluke play during a Super Bowl game and then parlayed it into a broadcasting career. When his newscaster popularity faded away, he retired to his home town where he continued to capitalize on his name through product sponsorships and speaking engagements. He currently was doing his best to stop a ski resort from being built near Choctaw. Almost everyone else in the town saw the resort as the only way to reverse the slow economic disintegration of their town, so Wade was currently at odds with a lot of folks but no one admitted to being so upset with him that they would kill him, much less hang his body in a barbecue smoker.

Helms captures the politics and personalities of small towns perfectly here, contributing to the story’s strong sense of place. There are always a handful of people who hold an outsized amount of power and influence in small towns, and everyone else has to go along with them or be ostracized, which Wade’s interviews illustrate. Choctaw’s power brokers were the largest investors in the proposed ski resort and therefore had the most to lose if the deal didn’t go through. They became the focus of Wade’s investigation although Savage’s womanizing streak could not be overlooked. He tended to leave a trail of angry women behind him, and Wade met several of them.

A community of off-the-grid dwellers, a hamlet of ruffians and moonshiners, a 45-year-old cold case, and some vivid descriptions of North Carolina nature all contribute to an entertaining police procedural. I always appreciate a well-concealed murderer and I didn’t guess this one. Wrapping up the cold case along the way with a second murderer who had every reason to believe they had escaped justice was a bonus.

Wade Durham has been compared to the Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension books by John Sanford. This particular story reminds me of the Donald Harstad police procedurals set in small-town Iowa and perhaps the Alex McKnight novels by Steve Hamilton. Fans of soundly plotted mysteries based on realistic forensics and evidence collection with a strong sense of place should look at this absorbing series launch.

·         ASIN: ‎B0FP2L2GGT

·         Publisher: ‎Barbadoes Hall Communications/Black Arch Books

·         Publication date: ‎August 27, 2025

·         Language: ‎English

·         Print length: ‎406 pages

·         ISBN-13: ‎979-8990041226

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4n6jRLM

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Review: Bump and Run: A Wade Durham Novel by Richard Helms

 

Bump and Run: A Wade Durham Novel by Richard Helms is the first book in a new series. Wade “The Blade” Durham, part time stock car driver, is also a full-time agent for the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI). He has just finished a race and is settled in to eat his victory steak when the boss calls with a case.

 

Choctaw, North Carolina, is dying small town. The population is dwindling and so is the local economy. It is the same story that is playing out across the country. The place will be gone in a couple of years unless something is done to save it. Industry isn’t the answer so the town leadership and other parties are all in on the tourism angle. The multimillion-dollar plan is to make a major area of the local mountain a ski resort in order to save the place.

 

Not everybody is onboard with the idea. Leading the charge against the project is home town hero and to some, villain, Winlock Savage. An aging former NFL QB who spent far more years in the broadcast booth after his playing days were over, has used his wealth to file a lawsuit to stop the project. Just as surely as he puts it to various women in his bed, he means to put it to those who are supporting the project.

 

It would be best for many people if he, at the very least, withdrew the lawsuit. He could go away and that would even be better. Especially if he quietly went away permanent like.

 

That has now happened.

 

Either he was killed or he committed suicide by hanging himself like a hog in the legendary local smokehouse. Either way, he has been smoked.

 

It probably wasn’t a suicide.

 

State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge, Malik Mourning, wants Wade “The Blade” Durham in Choctaw pronto and working a case that is going to gain national attention. The local police are not equipped to handle such a case and need the help. The local police chief, Navarro, has only been on the job about a year and is more than willing to have the SBI send somebody to work this kind of high-profile case. Or any high-profile case, for that matter, as they have not had a murder in forty years and the pandemic killed the last detective. The position remains unfilled.

 

Durham hits town, visits the smokehouse scene, talks to the locals, annoys some and amuses others, and basically starts poking under all the rocks. Those rocks lead to a case from 1977 and a ton of folks doing all sorts of shady stuff. The list of potential suspects is long. Winlock Savage was a large former NFL athlete and kept himself in shape. He did not commit suicide and then hang himself on a meat hook to get smoked. The man was murdered. Putting a man of his size on the hook in the smokehouse to hang like a butchered hog probably took more than one person.

 

What follows is a highly entertaining novel. Very reminiscent of the Virgil Flowers series by John Sandford, you have the same sort of main character here, albeit with less colorful language. Same attitude about fools that get in the way and a willingness to push authority aside to get the job done. Like Virgil Flowers, Wade Durham gets sent in to clean up messes. Unorthodox, he also might be their best agent. He gets in, finds the responsible parties, and moves on to the next messy situation the boss sends his way.  

 

This is going to be one heck of a series.

 

Bump and Run: A Wade Durham Novel is a fast-moving novel that has a few laughs and a lot of action. Strongly Recommended.

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/41XK72L

 

Author Update: "The ebook edition will be free on Amazon for five days beginning on Monday, September 15th."

 

My digital reading copy came directly from the author with no expectation of a review. But, truth be told, as soon as Mr. Helms mentioned that he was doing his version of a Virgil Flowers novel, he had me hooked like a fat bass on the line.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2025