Yellow Bird: A Doc Adams Mystery

YELLOW BIRD is a tale told by Doctor (Doc) Charles Adams, dental surgeon of Concord Massachusetts. It takes place over a few months in 1989, mostly in and around Boston and Cape Cod but also in coastal South Carolina. While walking along a beach one cold January day in the fabulously wealthy village of Osterville, Massachusetts, looking out over Nantucket Sound, Doc and wife Mary hear a shot from a rich man's empty summer "cottage." Three weeks later a corpse is found shot there. It is of a man that Doc and Mary know. And the seventh Doc Adams mystery has legs and is beginning to rollick right along. ***** The plot is fiendishly complex, with excursions to Jamaica and South Carolina. Homosexuality of the victim and others (further probed in a gay bar in Boston) is an important theme and key to solving the murder. The texture and winter weather of Boston are lovingly detailed. The Adams family are gourmet cooks and eaters, as are others key to the plot. Many a recipe is detailed, and favorite eating places described. This novel by Edgar Award winner Rick Boyer is technically polished and well worth reading. Not an easy read, mind you. You cannot skim it or afford to let your mind wander. But read YELLOW BIRD slowly, be on the alert for clues and you will have a ball. ***** Boyer is at the opposite end of detective writing theory from, say, G. K. Chesterton and his FATHER BROWN mysteries. Chesterton argued that the ideal detective tale is a short story, with little detailed background to distract from puzzle unraveling. Boyer says, in effect, that when a talented amateur sleuthing team like Doc and wife Mary tackle a mystery, they are not about to give up the other aspects of their lives -- especially eating well-- just to solve a crime. -OOO-