BLUE DEER THAW

Jules Clement has just about had it with being sheriff of Absaroke County, Montana. He’s fed up with one a.m. wake-up calls to rescue drunks lying comatose (or, in this case, dead) in snowbanks and riverbeds, and with the cantankerous, nutsy, gossipy citizens of the area who leave him little time and less privacy for romancing his deputy, Caroline Fair. Furthermore, with Harrison’s usual maniacal brio, the plot burbles along with pilfering from Halsey Meriwether’s collection of pornographic antiquities and squabbles in the restoration of the Hotel Sacajawea, which may make it uninhabitable for Peter and Alice’s wedding guests. Along the way there are bodies galore, most of them needing to be hacked out of the spring ice. Jules finally identifies the victims, dispatches the culprits, and withstands the rip-roaring time the wedding party has in filling in his new beloved on his bed-hopping history. Lively, hilarious, three-dimensional eccentrics careen through Harrison’s neatly-constructed plot. Like An Unfortunate Prairie Occurrence (1998), this exercise in controlled chaos is not to be missed by devotees of good writers with an exquisite sense of humor. Though Jules sounds serious about leaving the County and putting an end to the series, let’s hope that Harrison is just toying with us. Many more go-rounds for Jules and Absaroke County wackiness would be welcome.