THE WHISKEY KILLING

In Williams’s debut thriller (he is author of a Western: Harris: The Return of the Gunfighter, 2007), an old man is murdered in cold blood, and almost no one is unhappy about it.

Edwin Mayhew is no sweetheart. In the little town of Medford, which must be the crime capital of Arkansas, he controls a disproportionate share of shady profit centers, gambling and loan-sharking among them. One wintry Friday night, someone pumps four bullets into him, putting an end to a nonstop rampage of reprehensible behavior. At 70-plus, evil Edwin was still a working seducer. He “liked the young ones, the younger the better.” And he was adept at getting them, Captain Billy Walker of Medford PD quickly learns. His investigation has no trouble generating a rich and varied enemies list, since “that ravening wolf” has inflicted harm on a significant portion of Medford’s population. What’s more, the Mayhew effect remains in force postmortem, a legacy of terror for good people who continue to pay dearly just for having known the scary scoundrel. It takes Captain Billy a while to gear up, but then, smart as Sherlock and intimidated by nothing—“fear dwelled in him not at all”—he settles in for some proper ratiocination.

Williams is no stylist, but you’ll like stalwart Captain Billy and his winsome sidekick Sergeant Cordelia Hull, whose crush on her married boss wavers entertainingly between manageable and combustible.