Homicide My Own
Anne Argula
Pleasure Boat Studio, May 2005, $16.00, 219 pp.
ISBN: 1929355211

In Spokane, his adult girlfriend turned systems analyst thirtyish caught Charles T. Houser having inappropriate relations with a fourteen year-old Stacey. Rather then face the music, Charles jumps bail taking his Lolita with him. However, a Native American security chief at the Shalish Island Casino near Canada catches him and locks him up. Spokane Police Department Lieutenant sends Odd Gunderson and Quinn to bring him home.

Their trip back is delayed because Charles attempted suicide and cannot travel. Odd learns of the double murders of teenage lovers Jimmy Coyote and Jeannie Olson over three decades ago that was not solved. Frightening his partner because he knows things he should not, Odd somehow seems to provide insight to what happened. Quinn, already irritable from hot flashes, wonders if her younger male partner suffers from menopause or could a supernatural happening like a reincarnation or a spirit returning have occurred; Odd and Quinn investigate the now hot cold case homicides.

This is a marvelous and odd police procedural told from the perspective of grouchy Quinn who just wants a shower to cool off but instead is picking up a sex offender suspect, which leads to a weird investigation. The storyline grips the audience who like Quinn wants to know what is going on as her partner acts odd with information he should not know unless he was there, which is an age impossibility except if you believe in otherworldly occurrences or quantum physics. Ann Argula writes a quirky fun who-done-it that readers will value and demand more from this odd couple.

Harriet Klausner