A deputy who vanishes in his pickup truck amid Wyoming
mountains and a TV reporter with a nose for a story are at
the core of this well-written mystery. Deputy Foster
Redus, who had a way with the ladies but didn't leave them
happy, was last seen after Thanksgiving but is still
missing when Elizabeth Danniher arrives at Sherman's small
TV station in April. Elizabeth has been demoted since her
divorce and the move from NY is a holding pattern until she
sorts out her life. Then a young girl asks her for help,
despite the fact that the help she gives is officially
limited to consumer affairs.
Tamanda Burrell thinks it is unfair that her father is
blamed for the deputy's disappearance - he has lost
business and friends, and may lose joint custody of Tamanda
if his ex-wife has her way. Redus had been seeing Tamanda's
mother, giving Burrell motive. Only a brusque
investigation was carried out by the sheriff and Elizabeth
has to wonder why law enforcement wasn't more interested in
finding one of their own. Aided by Mike, a younger
reporter who wants mentoring, she dusts off her
investigative skills and asks questions of everyone in
town. Mike's aunt who works in the sheriff's office is a
great source of unofficial gossip and Deputy Alvarez is
also helpful, but the more influential citizens seem
determined to stymie the reporters. The women Redus had
been with each believe he is coming back for them, though
resentful of his other conquests. Then Redus's truck and
body are found off a mountain road, and matters take a more
sinister turn.
The setting is excellently described, from the struggle to
make ranches pay to the mineral resources of the state, the
artery-clogging food and long empty sweeping vistas.
Elizabeth is a realistic character as is Mike, a ball
player who retired when his knees quit, but has plenty of
resources and brains to carry on his second career. And
behind the scenes at the TV station is never dull, what
with the anchorman and other reporters afraid Elizabeth
will steal their careers and arranging quiet sabotage, but
the stalwart camera operator Diana backing her up.
McLinn was editor at the Washington Post for more than 20
years and has many books to her credit. Crime fans will
agree that SIGN OFF is an excellent read.
The last time anyone in Cottonwood County, Wyoming saw
Sheriff's Deputy Foster Redus, he was bloody, cussing, and
driving his pimped-out pickup into the November darkness. A
week before Christmas, rancher Thomas David Burrell was
arrested for the assault and charged with the deputy's
murder, since neither Redus nor his truck had been seen
since the Monday after Thanksgiving.
The prosecutor later set Burrell free due to insufficient
evidence, but with the whole county still suspecting him of
the crime, his ex-wife refused to let their daughter visit
him anymore.
"You've got to prove my Daddy didn't kill anybody," second
grader Tamantha Burrell tells KWMT-TV's consumer affairs
reporter, New York transplant Elizabeth Danniher.
"Now wait a minute . . . " the startled journalist begins.
"You're the 'Helping Out' lady," Tamantha insists. "You have
to help me."
Until a few months ago, Elizabeth "E.M." Danniher
investigated high crimes and national cases. Now, a messy
divorce from her network-TV-exec husband, combined with her
no-longer-quite-perky-enough sex appeal, has banished her to
Wyoming, where she has to fulfill the remainder of her
contract. She handles the "Helping Out" segment at Sherman,
Wyoming's only news station. Her latest assignment:
assisting an elderly woman who wants her faulty toaster
replaced.
But Tamantha needs her, and so Elizabeth goes back on the
crime beat, trying to unravel the mystery of the missing
deputy and track down a killer who intends to make sure she
doesn't live to go Live At Five with the scoop.
P. A. McLinn, after spending twenty-plus years as an editor
for the Washington Post, now writes full-time. Her books
have topped bestseller lists and been translated into more
than twenty languages.
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