<\/p>\n
Chief of Police Jack McBride has been on the job for just eight weeks, and the crime rate in Stillwater has apparently soared. The dead bodies are multiplying and high school kids are overdosing on dirty heroin. McBride\u2019s job has become a political football in the city council campaign of powerful, lifelong Stillwater resident Joe Doyle (who looks \u201clike a televangelist and was about as trustworthy\u201d), owner of Doyle Industries, the town\u2019s largest employer, who is also the local drug lord.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n McBride has personal problems, too. His ne\u2019er-do-well brother Eddie has taken a job with Doyle Industries; his estranged wife, Julie, has returned after a year of finding herself; and his budding love affair with Ellie Martin is on indefinite hold. As McBride gets ever closer to solving the crime wave, he discovers that he is a target.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Fisher King: A Jack McBride Mystery<\/em><\/span><\/a> is the second novel in Melissa Lenhardt\u2019s series set in the small, fictional East Texas town of Stillwater. In Lenhardt\u2019s first installment in the series, <\/span>Stillwater,<\/span><\/a><\/em> Jack McBride took down the corrupt former chief of police who had been in power for decades, controlling the population through fear, blackmail, and extortion, and by keeping their secrets in return for certain favors. It\u2019s possible to read The Fisher King <\/em>as a stand-alone, as Lenhardt does a great job of summarizing the goings-on in Stillwater.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The plot in this second installment in the series is simpler than it seems, with multiple subplots well woven in. The pace is quick and steady, accelerating toward the climax, as it should, with plenty of twisty elements to keep you guessing. Lenhardt\u2019s cast is large, but each character is a sharply delineated individual, making the crowd easy to keep straight\u2014except for the moles and double agents. Most of Lenhardt\u2019s characters are believably genuine, excepting Julie McBride, a grown woman who looks \u201clike the quintessential John Hughes movie villainess,\u201d with the maturity of one of the Mean Girls.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n One of the best things about The Fisher King<\/em> is Lenhardt\u2019s uncannily complete evocation of a fictional community. Stillwater rings true and has depth; I think I\u2019ve been there. The small-town Texas personalities are here, as well as the not-so-secrets in a town where everybody knows your name. The conflicts and paradoxes of small towns are here, too. The need for economic revitalization versus an insular populace, suspicious of outsiders. The tendency to decades-old grudges. Historic preservation versus big-box stores.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Fisher King<\/em> is like a weekly television soap opera, a cross between Friday Night Lights<\/em> and Dallas<\/em>, with touches of Peyton Place<\/em> for good measure. Lenhardt sets up the third installment expertly, including a new character. The Fisher King<\/em> isn\u2019t great literature, but it\u2019s entertaining and engrossing fun\u2014a great way to end the second season.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Review of The Fisher King <\/em>by Melissa Lenhardt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,8,17,15,111],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lonestarreview","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-mystery","tag-texasauthor","tag-texasbook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}