Shattered Dreams by Frank Hayes

First Line: The early morning sun was just high enough to make him squint.

 

Although the burnt out shell of a trailer and the charred body inside show all the signs of a meth lab gone wrong, Sheriff Virgil Dalton sees enough evidence there to tell him that there was foul play. Then another fatality that's supposedly an accidental death tells Dalton that there's a sinister pattern beginning to emerge. 

 

Could that pattern have anything to do with a local company whose rapid growth is changing the face of the land he loves? Maybe. Maybe not. But it does show that there's a killer on the loose who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. Sheriff Virgil Dalton has a lot of work to do and only a very little time in which to get it done.

 

~

 

In my opinion, Sheriff Virgil Dalton ranks right up there with others in my Sheriffs Pantheon. What others? Try Walt Longmire and Joanna Brady for starters. I just wish there were more than three books in this series because the message these books convey is much greater than the sum of their parts.

 

There's a slow, steady unfolding of the mystery in Shattered Dreams, but the mystery is just the tip of the iceberg. We experience the age-old problem of fighting a city council that wants the sheriff's department to perform miracles on a broken shoestring budget-- a city council that took ten years to decide to spend money to install a stop light at a dangerous intersection. Times are changing, and the problems of the world are coming to this small town where that old yellow dog used to be able to sleep out in the middle of Main Street. No matter how much the city council wants to live in the past, they must be dragged into the here and now.

What makes Shattered Dreams and the other two books in the series (Death at the Black Bull and Death on the High Lonesome) so good is what I call the People Angle. The characters draw you in and keep you wanting more. Rosie, the dispatcher who keeps the office shipshape and everyone in line, puts me in mind of Walt Longmire's Ruby. Something happens to another character, and readers will be left reeling in shock but ultimately comforted by how everyone draws together.

Sheriff Virgil Dalton is the type of lawman readers can respect and grow to love. He's quiet and observant. He sees value in the sorts of people that most folks write off, people whom others believe are only fit to gossip about. He's always putting everyone else ahead of himself, sometimes to his own detriment. And, like Sheriff Joanna Brady over in Cochise County, Arizona, he knows that his "job is about way more than just catching bad people; it's about helping good people, too, and about putting broken lives back together."  

 

Even more than the solution of the mystery, it's how Frank Hayes, in often evocative and poetic language, has created a world and characters who, despite it all, focuses on the good that means the most to me. When I read a Virgil Dalton mystery, I am in Hayes' world. Want to know how deep? Shattered Dreams made me forget that I was stranded in a lonely hospital room, that's how deep. And this will keep me coming back time after time after time. I long for more books in this series, and I sincerely hope that this is one wish that comes true.

 

Shattered Dreams by Frank Hayes

eISBN: 9781950461004

Beyond the Page Publishing © 2019

eBook, 190 pages

 

Police Procedural, #3 Sheriff Virgil Dalton mystery

Rating: A+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Death on the High Lonesome by Frank Hayes

First Line: Jimmy Tillman hardly ever went on the interstate.

Sheriff Virgil Dalton knows that his sleepy hometown is beginning to reflect the times, and that's not always a good thing. But being aware of the changes doesn't take the shock or sting out of one of his deputies almost being killed by a woman's body falling from the highway overpass-- a woman the medical examiner believes had been running for her life.

Longtime resident Velma Thompson reports her husband Charlie missing, and no one thinks much of it. A tough old rancher, Charlie was known to saddle up a horse and ride over his land for several days at a time. But when Velma's body is found sitting on her front porch, Virgil knows something is seriously wrong and that Charlie must be found. Virgil saddles up and heads to the High Lonesome, the rugged mountains above the Thompsons' ranch house. On a windswept mesa, he's going to find the first clues that point to a murderer who's determined to get his way, no matter how many people he has to kill.

After the first book in this series (Death at the Black Bull) compared so favorably to both Walt Longmire and Harry Bosch, I was really looking forward to Death on the High Lonesome. What I read makes me look forward now to the third book.

If there's any weakness to be found here, it's in the mystery. For one thing, it's very slow to get moving, but that may be due to the second thing: it's easy to guess the identity of the killer. Those two things may be dealbreakers for some, but not for me because there's a lot more to Death on the High Lonesome than the mystery.

The dry landscape and mountains of the desert Southwest shine here and draw me right into the story. Frank Hayes has a sparse, matter of fact prose that can still lend itself easily to poetry especially when Virgil saddles up and heads into the arroyos and mesas of the high lonesome. (I don't know about you, but I've always found the phrase "high lonesome" to be incredibly evocative.) Death on the High Lonesome can also be called an elegy to the life of a rancher, a life that's fast disappearing.

The strong backbone of this series is its ensemble cast that is reminiscent of the cast of Craig Johnson's Longmire books. Virginia, a young woman who's having a profound impact on Virgil's personal life. The old Mexican, Cesar, who's Virgil's ranch foreman and second father. Virgil's Apache grandfather. Then there are the people Virgil works with: Rosie the dispatcher, Dif the old part-timer, young Jimmy, and Ark the medical examiner. Every member of this cast cares about the others, and they're pretty good about adding some comic relief from time to time.

If you like reading mysteries with strong characters and evocative settings, I urge you to try Frank Hayes' Virgil Dalton books. There is character development, so I recommend beginning with Death at the Black Bull. And now I'm looking forward to book three, Shattered Dreams.

Death on the High Lonesome by Frank Hayes

ISBN: 9780425274309

Berkley Prime Crime © 2015

Paperback, 304 pages

Police Procedural, #2 Sheriff Virgil Dalton mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet.


 

Death at the Black Bull by Frank Hayes

First Line: He sat on the tail of the old pickup, watching the dark as it crowded the western sky.

Nobody takes much notice when Buddy Hinton disappears. After all, he's just a good ole boy and probably went down to Mexico to have a little fun. But when Sheriff Virgil Dalton finds Buddy's body floating in one of his stock tanks, he knows this means Buddy really upset someone.

Townspeople like to think of Hayward as one of those dusty little towns where the old yellow dog sleeps in the middle of Main Street, but it hasn't been like that for a long time. It's going to take Virgil and his deputy, Jimmy, time to retrace the dead man's steps-- and they're going to have to remain one step ahead of a murderer who has no qualms about killing more people to keep a secret.

Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire is my favorite sheriff, so when I come across a new one, I have to see how he measures up to Walt. I think Walt and Virgil would get along just fine. Dalton calls himself a half-breed, he considers an old Mexican man who is the foreman on his ranch to be his second father, and his grandfather lives in a trailer way out in the back of beyond. He doesn't miss much. He doesn't say much. And he certainly gets the job done. He knows his town isn't the "old yellow dog" town anymore, and he doesn't back down when it comes to demanding the city fathers chase the moths out of their wallets to get him the help he needs.

Most importantly, the thing that won me over was how Dalton treats the people around him. He treats them with respect, and he doesn't ignore people everyone else has decided are "throwaways." A case in point is his deputy, Jimmy. Jimmy had an extremely abusive childhood, and most folks in town think he's not worth much... in fact he may even be a bit slow. But Virgil knows the life Jimmy has led, and he's spent time with the young man, listened to him, talked with him, and taught him things he needs to know. As a result, Jimmy could very well turn out to be an exemplary lawman. Dalton is in the Harry Bosch camp: everyone counts, or no one counts, and I like that.

Yes, as I read Death at the Black Bull, I fell for Virgil Dalton. I also fell for Frank Hayes' writing. The descriptions of the desert setting are evocative, and he's got a knack for making readers care about his characters. I spent most of the book wondering if the bad guy(s) would find Dalton's grandfather, if something would happen to the sheriff's beloved horse or to the old Mexican Cesar or to Jimmy. I seldom ever spend so much time feeling nervous while I'm reading a book.  But it was a good nervous. Know what I mean?

There's only one thing that made me roll my eyes, but I can't really say anything about it without giving away major plot points. I'll just let you wonder about it. I expected Death at the Black Bull to be good, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how good it really is. Now I have to get my hands on a copy of the next book in the series, Death on the High Lonesome. I'm looking forward to my next date with Virgil Dalton.

Death at the Black Bull by Frank Hayes

eISBN: 9780698155350

Berkley © 2014

eBook, 320 pages

Police Procedural, #1 Virgil Dalton mystery

Rating: A

Source: Amazon