Title: Framed
Author: Robert Wangard
Publisher: Ampersand, Inc.
ISBN: 978-099744930-3
Pages: 288
Genre: Mystery /Thriller
Reviewed by: Joe Kilgore
Buy on AmazonPacific Book Review
The title tells you exactly what this novel is about. An individual being set up to take the fall for something he or she didn’t actually do has been a staple of crime fiction since the genre’s infancy. It has withstood the test of time because we all harbor the fear that if it can happen to someone else, it can happen to us.
In this case, it happens to Jimmy Ray Evans, a wisecracking, woman-chasing, radio disc jockey short on morals and long on bad decision-making. When a North Carolina county Sheriff finds out the DJ has been bedding his wife, wheels are set in motion to make it look like Jimmy Ray is both a dope-dealer and murderer. Will the frame work? Will the cuckolded Sheriff extract his revenge? Will Jimmy Ray pay the ultimate price for one-to-many sexual liaisons? Those are the questions at the heart of author Wangard’s sixth Pete Thorsen novel.
Thorsen is an attorney who has put Chicago his rear-view mirror for the simpler life in rural Michigan. It seems that he continually attracts trouble like trailer parks attract tornadoes. In this particular installment, he’s involved because Jimmy Ray takes it on the lamb to avoid the sordid goings-on in North Carolina and decides to simply drop in, unannounced, at Thorsen’s place in Michigan. It seems they are old Army buddies who haven’t seen each other for quite a while. One thing leads to another and before you know it Thorsen is neck-deep in Jimmy Ray’s predicament. As you might expect, subterfuge, skullduggery, and even more sinister events soon follow as Thorsen tries to help his former pal.
Wangard’s prose is the essence of economy. There’s no attempt to replicate hard-boiled noir, nor are there gratuitous flights into flippant dialogue. This is straightforward storytelling the late Jack Webb, in his Joe Friday role from the old radio and TV series Dragnet, would have described as “the facts, mam, just the facts.” It’s a technique that serves both the author and the reader well. The pace of the story moves along swiftly and multiple characters moving in and out of the narrative are easy to keep up with. Plus there are also enough twists and turns along the way to keep you wondering whether or not Thorsen is doing the right thing by trying to do right by his philandering friend.
If you like your crime fiction fast, fit, and free of genre overindulgence, you just might want to consider getting Framed.
