Links:                     »  Books  »  Biography  »  Articles/Reviews  »  News  »  Events     E-Mail Address nolanclewis@yahoo.com www.amazon.com

Mauled            Murder happens in small towns too. Even in paradise. In this small Washington coastal town, the dreary winter is livened when one of the locals is found with a nine pound splitting maul protruding from his head. With cause of death apparently so obvious, and with the only prints on the handle those of a less than brilliant young local, the county District Attorney is quick to settle on him as the only possible perpetrator.       Tom Hill, a free lance writer, is asked by the paper across the Columbia River to cover the story. Friend Sherry Thompkins, Attorney, who slums on week-ends. by spending them at the moldy old motel cabin where Tom lives, and he, decide there is more to the story and set out to prove it. The suspect has taken to the woods and there are men in four wheel drive trucks, all armed with rifles and shotguns, running up and down the logging roads, beating the brush trying to find him. Preferably dead.       Sherry gets herself appointed to represent the suspect.. They are surprised to find that most of the local police don’t agree with the DA and are willing to help, but unofficially.  Police warn them repeatedly and several times rescue them from attacks habitues of the bar where the deceased widow works.  The bar that is the hangout of  the worker from the local fish cannery, that smells strongly of  fish, stale beer, and urine, and hangs out over the bank of the Columbia River on pilings.  There are rumors of strange hapenings involving this easy access to the river.       They suspect drugs as there are rumors of them at every turn, but a small town tavern is a closed society making finding of proof difficult.  In one attempt they almost learn if the rumors of strange happenings in the river under the tavern are true, first hand.       Visits to the bakery where everyone goes for the local gossip, some of the cafes of the area, and a wild ride through the woods in the dark of night bring out the flavor of the beach, and also establish the  characters and their almost old married couple relationship.        The coroners report has some surprises that change the mind of everyone but the DA, but still don't point to anyone else.  They methodically prove that everyone of their possible suspectes can't possibly be the killer, but the guilty party apparently doesn't know this as the threats keep coming.       After several warnings to butt out, breakins, and bricks through windows in the middle of the night, attacks escalate into an attempt to run them off the road into a lake, resulting in the death of one of the red necks.  They are finally able to put it all together, but only because of an accidental encounter that almost leads to their death in the process because their efforts are only too obvious to the culprits.  And only after they spend time staring into the barrel of a gun.

Coming later