Chat (Wheeler Large Print Book Series) - Hardcover

Archer Mayor lives in Newfane, Vermont. He writes full-time and volunteers as a firefighter/EMT. He is also a death investigator for the state's medical examiner and a part-time police officer for the Bellows Falls Police Department. Mayor has lived all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and has been variously employed as a scholarly editor, a researcher for TIME-LIFE Books, a political advance man, a theater photographer, a newspaper writer/editor, and a medical illustrator. In addition to his Joe Gunther series, he has written two books on American history, a few short stories, and many articles.

Relationships always drive Mayor's plots, but never more so than in this intricate, suspense-filled 18th Joe Gunther novel (after 2006's The Second Mouse). When Gunther's mother and brother are almost killed in a suspicious car accident, he helps Deputy Sheriff Rob Barrows narrow in on a local, lawless family with a grievance against the Gunthers. Meanwhile, the investigation of two similar but seemingly unrelated deaths leads Gunther's colleagues at the Vermont Bureau of Investigation to online chat rooms where older men pick up teen girls. Gunther's former lover, Gail Zigman, makes an appearance, but Lyn Silva, last seen in 2004's The Surrogate Thief, takes center stage as his new love interest. This book takes Gunther all over Vermont, offering occasional breaks from the tension with evocative descriptions of mountains and snow. Though Mayor is considered a regional writer, his books intelligently deal with subjects of national concern, and Gunther's crime-solving skills and personal charisma have broad appeal. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.