A Death in Victory by Gregory Bean

A pleasant surprise

Published in 1997.

If you are an avid reader, you know how much of a gamble it can be to pick up a book by an author you've never heard of and jump into the middle of a series. You could get lucky and find a great new author to read or you could just be wasting your time.

Well, I'm pleased to report that this is a great book and I'm going to seek out the others in the series. A Death in Victory is the third in a series featuring Harry Starbranch, the town police officer in Victory, Wyoming.

Rather than go through plot details I'll give you a general idea about the book. A Death in Victory reads a bit like Robert Parker meets Tony Hillerman. Starbranch is a wisecracking cop who is not afraid to throw his fists. He has friends and connections everywhere and is not afraid to use them. But, like Hillerman, there's an acknowledgment of the reality of the immenseness of the wide open western spaces. He describes Wyoming and its culture as lovingly as Hillerman describes the Navajo reservation and its environs.

In case you are wondering, you do not have to read the previous books in the series in order to follow along with this one.

Good plot, well-paced. The ending surprised me but also made sense. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I give A Death in Victory 5 stars out of a possible 5 stars.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Death in Victory by Gregory Bean.

Reviewed on April 25, 2006.