Rocketgirl's Full Review: Earl W. Emerson - Deviant Behavior
Earl Emerson writes this series of novels featuring Thomas Black, a private detective in Seattle. I especially enjoy this series since I know many of the landmarks that are featured. I don’t live in Seattle, but in Washington, and I’ve visited there often enough to recognize where the characters are. It makes it easy to picture what is going on. This one takes place partly in old Chinatown and partly in the underground city. It was originally published in 1988.
This time, Thomas Black has been hired to find a missing teenage boy, Todd Steeb. Todd is a brilliant pianist, but his father finds this unimportant and wants him to go into his carpet business. Todd runs away and Black’s only help his Todd’s brother Buzz. Did Todd’s father push him to run or was it something else. Buzz explains the suicide death of their uncle six years before. Todd has never accepted that the death was suicide. Perhaps he is looking into it.
Soon Black finds out that there is more to it than what meets the eye. Clayton James, a writer and commune owner, was a friend of Todd and could have influenced him. The man is definitely a bit odd, and his wife DeLores, an ex-movie star, claims to have known Todd well. Their groundskeeper Carstens seems to have been a confidante of Todd, but when Black visits him he is found dead in a well. His girlfriend’s father beats him up one day, but it also turns up that Todd’s uncle once worked for his girlfriend’s father. Somehow this all has to be connected. It is up to Black to find out.
As I said before I enjoy Emerson’s stories because they are set in a location I am familiar with. It makes it easier to picture what is happening. I like the character of Thomas Black, an ex-cop, now private detective. He isn’t big macho dude, nor a simpering wimp. He’s somewhere in between. Nor is he trying to be the “unusual” man like Spencer, in Spencer for hire, who is a big tough guy who cooks gourmet food. Real people are just not like that. Thomas Black is unpretentious and is not motivated solely by making a buck.
The only returning character is Kathy Birchfield, a lawyer, who employs him. I'm a bit confused on their relationship but it sounds like they were one-time lovers but went their separate ways. They still work together, but now just check in on each other's love lives. Her contacts and knowledge are a help in his work, just like he helps her by doing the leg work. The two characters complement each other well.
This story had two teenagers in it, which usually keeps a murder mystery from getting too gruesome. That was the case in this story. There are three deaths in it, but none are described graphically, and two of the three are found bodies, in which the violent events are not described at all. The interaction between teens and adults is also interesting, especially between people who are virtual strangers but have to learn to trust each other.
The plot is a little bit slow, with a few chapters containing material about Thomas Black's dating exploits. It rounds out his character maybe, but it feels like filler. There is also a lot of time spent driving around. There are not a lot of characters in the story, so the list of possible suspects is relatively small and doesn't leave the reader much puzzle to unravel. Though I will admit that the person I figured was guilty was absolutely not the one!
Overall I enjoyed the story, a relatively quick read at just over 200 pages in paperback format. Interesting characters, good location, and a twist at the end. There is very little violence or profanity and no nudity at all. This series tends to be "lighter" reading, not the hard-boiled detective and does not try to be something off the newspaper headlines. More like Magnum P.I. vs. NYPD Blue. A good series for light reading and interesting people.
When seventeen-year-old Todd Steeb has been missing for eight days, his wealthy parents hire Thomas Black to investigate. Faith Steeb is worried by he...More at Buy.com
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