#11 Joe Gunther, Special Agent In Charge, Vermont Bureau of Investigation; police procedural/thriller.Canadian and Vermont locations, the French mob and Hell's Angels, World War 2 commandos, and a frozen corpse enliven the first case for the new VBI, as Joe and friends (police agencies, Canadiens and Vermonters) work their way slowly through an extremely convoluted case that crosses over and back across the border repeatedly. And complicating things even more, the current Big Boss of the mob is almost dead from cancer, and his heir-apparent seems to be completely nuts. Some of the usual characters in Joe's life are along for the show, though, and help to make things interesting, even as we get introduced to several new players now that he has moved from Brattleboro Police Department to the VBI - Willy Kunkle and Sammy Martens have joined Joe there at his request, with all their emotional and historical baggage intact. There are interesting portraits here of policing methods' differences between Surete and RCMP and American Police, as each has their own particular way of managing things. The interplay between the services as the VBI, itself a sort of conglomeration of several American/Vermont agencies, mixes with a task force of Canadian/Canadien forces as they all attempt to combat an apparent showdown coming soon between old mob forces and the Hell's Angels and a breakaway group of ex-Angels; the mob guys and the Angels had kept a working relationship for decades but the splinter group is out for blood - anybody's blood, it seems. A strong entry in this long series, with good characterizations, wonderful settings, a bit of historical interest, lots of twists and turns, and the always likeable Joe Gunther who, although a bit of an Energizer Bunny-type (gets repeatedly hurt and just keeps on going and going...) is one of my favorite detectives. The gentle humor is very satisfying and helps to balance some of the straight-on macho shoot-em-up stuff that I find can become very wearying after a while. This is a nicely blended, very satisfying story, even though it's not the strongest one - especially emotionally - in this extremely good series.
This is the 4th Archer Mayor novel I’ve read, all including Joe Gunther and the VBI. Mr. Mayor is one of my five favorite authors. The three other novels I’ve read of his (Red Herring, 3 Can Keep a Secret and The Price of Malice) were all great books: exciting, fast moving, interesting, fascinating and lots of plot twists.The Marble Mask, however, left me feeling…meh.I truly love his characters and feel for them: Joe, Sammie and of course, Willy. (How can you not love Willy Kunkle?) I love Mr. Mayor’s writing style and story-telling ability. His novels always pull me in and make me feel like I have something personally vested in nabbing the bad guy.But for some reason, I didn’t feel that in this novel.Maybe it was me. Maybe I’m in the minority. As I write this review, there are a total of 29 other reviews of this book and 23 of them are 5 stars. For some reason, I just never got pulled in. I really find myself somewhat unconcerned with who the murderer was. The story and the investigation left me feeling flat. I usually read one of his books in 2 days, perhaps 3 at the most. This one took me 5.I still love his work, the VBI, the characters. Mr Mayor is still one of my favorites. No doubt about it.If you’ve never read an Archer Mayor novel, DON’T start with this one cause you probably wont be hooked enough to read more of his writing.I really should give this 3 stars. But due to his track record and the characters, I’m going with 4 stars
What do You think about The Marble Mask (2013)?
Not the Author's BestThis is an entry in the long running and very successful Joe Gunther series. As is usually the case, this story features a complicated plot beginning with the appearance of a murder victim whose body has been frozen for a half-century. Two of the continuing problems with the series that are especially notable here are the tendency for officers to act as individual agents rather than police and having Gunther stumble into dangerous situations that he could easily avoid and for which he is unfit. Two special problems are the slow patches created by irrelevant history and travelogue. This is certainly not the author's best work.
—george burns
