J.M. Hayes, Plains Crazy

Plains Crazy

J.M. Hayes

Poisoned Pen, Oct 2004, $24.95, 252 pp.

ISBN: 1590581326

Benteen, Kansas is a quiet serene place where nothing much happens, so when a PBS reality show arrives in town this is a big deal. The show deals with modern day Indians adapting to living like their ancestors did. The first inkling of trouble starts when Michael Spotted Elk leaves the family teepee to make out with Daphne Alights on the Cloud; someone kills him using a Cheyenne arrow. Daphne reports that Mad Dog and Wolf Hailey went past them and Mad Dog becomes the prime suspect until Daphne remembers he was not carrying a bow.

The sheriff's wife Judy English tells him they are going to Paris, but if he fails to come with her, she probably will not return to him. He does not believe that he can get away now because bombs and other explosives are going off all over town. A motorcycle rider tries to kill Mad Dog using a bow and arrow. Judy is mistaken for a bank robber because the teller fails to recognize her with her new hair-do. Someone placed something in the night deposit box that turns out to be a bomb with a $10,000 demand note attached which Judy gave the teller which made her think Judy was a bank robber. Nothing seems linked yet since PBS-arrived hell has come to drive the PLAINS CRAZY.

This is a wacky, dazzling ride into lunacy in which the sheriff, unused to bombs exploding, must find a way to defuse the mess. Complicating his professional life is his wife who gives him an ultimatum at a time when he cannot even ponder what to do for her for there is so much craziness overwhelming him. J.M. Hayes has written a wild, whimsical, yet complicated conspiracy thriller.

Harriet Klausner