SIX PIPERS DANCING

Yes, I know, it’s supposed to be eleven pipers piping. But I’m not talking about Christmas here. Except that reading one of Jean Rabe’s Piper Blackwell Mysteries always feels like Christmas. You know, the good ones, when you get exactly what you want plus a few delightful surprises. But essentially, I’m saying that Rabe’s Piper novels dance to the rhythm of her prodigious talent to choreograph the plot, to glide in descriptions of places, atmosphere, things, and people, and to perform the core of her characters, all moving the music of her prose.

So far, there have been six Piper Blackwell Mysteries from The Dead of Winter

to The Dead of Sled Run.

They cover the first year of Piper’s service as sheriff of an ordinarily peaceful county in Indiana. Piper is only twenty-three when she takes office on January 1. Fifty-eight minutes into that day, she is faced with her first murder. And a rather weird, grizzly, ironic one at that. Why ironic? You can find that out for yourself when you read the book, which I highly recommend.

Then, of course, you will want to read the second, then the third, and onward until you finish The Dead of Sled Run, by which time I hope, for your sake, Rabe has released the seventh Piper novel!

The Dead of Sled Run begins with a terrifyingly described (in Rabe’s beautifully controlled prose) house fire that grievously harms Piper’s chief deputy as he remains in danger to save his four cats. A veteran of the force who ran against Piper for the sheriff’s position has, for the past year, maintained a certain bitterness over his loss. Be that as it may, this highly experienced officer of the law, despite having to take orders from a 23-year-old “girl” of only military police service, has never done less than excellent work as her chief deputy. Their relationship is understandably strained, but they have made some progress toward mutual respect in the last year, although there is still tension between them. But the fire, the result of apparent arson, is an attack on one of the department’s own, and Piper is determined to find and arrest whoever did it. And why?

Was it an anti-Semitic attack? Her chief deputy is Oren Rosenberg, a Jew. A six-pointed star has been painted onto his garage by the arsonist. Oren lives in a gated community in the town of Santa Claus (I kid you not, but you’ll learn about Santa Claus in the first Piper mystery). All the streets have cute Christmassy names, and, as the novel takes place during December, almost all the houses are decked out in bright-colored festive lights, except for Oren’s. However, as a long-time resident, his neighbors know him well and all like him. They have no negative feelings about him or his religion. So, how did someone get into the community to commit the crime?

Then the garage of Piper’s father, the former sheriff (yes, this may have been why she won the election), and now the chief of police in Santa Claus, is set ablaze, destroying it and the apartment above it, where Oren’s granddaughter, a deputy sheriff (it’s a small county) lives. Neither was hurt in the fire.

Then, Piper’s chief detective, Basil, stops the arsonist from burning down his house in the middle of the night and breaks his ankle, chasing the culprit. Basil is not Jewish. But he is black. Racism? Antisemitism? Or is it just broad hate for anyone not “white”?

Or is it something else just as vicious and very close to home?

You can find all the Piper Blackwell Mysteries on Amazon HERE.

You can learn more about Rabe and her work on her blog HERE.