SW Hubbard, Swallow the Hook

Swallow the Hook

S.W. Hubbard

Pocket, June 2004, $6.50, 332 pp.

ISBN 0743467582

After mishandling a case in Kansas City, Frank Bennett was fired from the department. He took a job as the chief of Police in the small town of Trout Run, located in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. At first he thought it would be a quiet job but when he got a homicide case, he realized that he could be very happy living and working in an area where everybody knows everybody else.

Mary Pat Sheehan was a friendly twenty-eighth year old woman who lived with her parents and never dated. When she was discovered dead behind the wheel of her car, nobody, including her parents, knew that she was pregnant or that she died from complications stemming from the delivery. Frank discovers that Mary Pat gave birth to a healthy girl and handed her over to a shady adoption ring. The radical environmental group Green Tomorrow, whose leader was murdered while staying in Trout Run, and various residents who feel they were played as fools by this group are ready to brawl and Frank has all he can handle to keep the peace.

S.W. Hubbard is a genius at creating all types of characters, who touch the heart of reader. The audience will root for them to get their heart's desire and understand their pain. The two sub-plots intersect in a surprising twists but readers will not find out who killed the environmental or where Mary Pat's child is until the author chooses to reveal the answers. SWALLOW THE HOOK is a fascinating police procedural.

Harriet Klausner