Silas Lopez, hero of Christopher Mirabile’s The Washashore, grew up living the cowboy life in the American West, then became a cop in Salt Lake City. Some trouble sent him out job-hunting, and now he’s about as far east as he can get, working as the new police chief of the small coastal town of Provincetown, Massachusetts. One night a body is found in a street, apparently an automotive hit and run, but the injuries are unusually severe. Si puts his team to work on the seemingly impossible job of finding out what happened on a deserted street, in the middle of the night, in a neighborhood apparently without security cameras. But Si sees the case as an opportunity too – his team needs seasoning and guidance.
In the course of all this investigation, he meets Wren Bradford, a local social worker and photographer. He begins a very tentative flirtation with her, because in areas of the heart, he’s the one who needs seasoning and guidance.
The more the cops investigate, the more the case opens out, and before long they all know they’re dealing with something far bigger than an isolated pedestrian death.
The Washashore is a debut novel, and this reader found it promising. The prose was pretty decent, and the plot kept me interested, though I think the book could have been kept shorter.
One way it might have been streamlined would have been by cutting some of Si’s dialogue. He’s an intriguing, colorful character, a cowboy in a New England fishing town, but he lays on the ten-gallon metaphors and aphorisms to the point where it grows comic:
“Folks, I know it’s temptin’ to feel lower than a snake’s belly at this point…. Truth is, I’ve seen tumbleweed on a still day with more forward momentum than what we’ve got goin’ on now.”
There’s a whole lot that kind of talk. A lighter application would have been just as effective, and less unintentionally comic.
The author takes pains to establish his right-thinking liberal credentials, without making it too ham-handed. I was annoyed, though, by a conversation between the hero and his girlfriend, where he expresses confusion over today’s dating standards. The woman explains cheerfully that they’ve transcended old sexual roles, and that the modern rule is simply to pay attention to the other person’s feelings. This is, in my opinion, bunk. What it actually means is that the man is kept constantly off-balance, with the woman positioned to shoot him down whenever her mood alters.
The principle also contrasts with good police procedure, as Si explains it to his cop team, where adherence to strict protocols prevents errors and often saves lives.
Still, I enjoyed the book overall. And it didn’t end the way I expected, so that’s a point for the author.
Moderately recommended.