Book Review - Past Imperfect

Past Imperfect
by Kathleen Hills
Poisoned Pen Press, June 2002
302 pages, $24.95
ISBN 1-59058-007-9
John McIntire series #1

John McIntire ran away from his home in St. Adele to fight in the second world war. Now thirty years later, after living, working, and marrying in England, he has come back with his British wife Leonie to live in his boyhood home. He is serving as township constable, a job that usually consists of breaking up groups of rowdy teenagers and domestic disturbances.

Then he is called to the scene of a friend's death. The fisherman, allergic to bees, was out on his boat in Lake Superior when stung and it looks as if he did not get the shot of epinephrine into his thigh in time. It appears to be an unfortunate accident. Yet as McIntire looks over the scene, the suspicion that it might have been set up as a practical joke, a warning, or even murder nags at him. After the funeral, McIntire, plagued by these doubts, looks for the missing needle and the bottle of epinephrine but someone has disposed of them. The local sheriff listens to McIntire's suspicions and agrees to look into it--but how far can they look? And what could possibly be the motive? Other than a heavily mortgaged boat, there was little left to leave to anyone. The victim had been picking fights with everyone lately but he was also the one who risked his life to pull a friend out of a fire long ago.

McIntire makes the rounds of people he knew as a boy to find out anything that could help him to find a murderer. Then another death occurs. This time the body is found by his childhood friend, Mia, moments after the crime is committed. However, by the time McIntire gets to the spot, the body is gone. Just a few spots of blood are left at the scene. A search party is organized by the townsfolk to find the body of the hapless victim. Again, McIntire is nagged by the thought that the murder is related somehow to the first victim but he just can't find the connection. Is Mia in danger as well? Did the murderer stand hidden away as Mia found the body? McIntire is not going to rest until he figures it out despite a blinding and incapacitating migraine that strikes him just as the town comes out in full force to celebrate the fourth of July.

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