Genre:
Book
Grade:
B+
Notable People: Archer Mayor
Title:
” The
Orphan’s Guilt”
Review: The twenty-sixth annual
installment in Mayors’ very long running Joe Gunther series was hit and miss
for me. Archer, who is a longstanding acquaintance of ours in Vermont, does a great
job of keeping Joe and his troops fresh- though at this point, I would calculate
Gunther to be around 95 based on the chronology of the earlier books- but who’s
counting? The main characters have graced these pages for over a quarter century
and all gotten richer and deeper with time. Mayor also continues to bring back characters
he introduced decades ago, with several in this book who were small children in
the early books- now thriving and interesting young women. The sense of Vermont
in the books remains the best around, with this one criss -crossing the state
to many of our regular haunts. And the understated philosophical meanderings about
Vermont as a place and state of mind is worth the price of admission. The story
in this one meandered a bit for my tastes, though it did eventually reel me in.
But sort of petered out at the end, without much of a resolution. I’m being
picky, since most of the book in thus series are” A” material for me. It remains
an event every October for the release of the next addition…makes me want to make
a trip to Gunther’s Brattleboro every time.
