The Surrogate Thief is the fifteenth Joe Gunther mystery novel by Archer Mayor. As mystery novelists go, Archer Mayor is decidedly uneven in his production. Some Joe Gunther novels plod along with a plot and characters the reader barely cares about. This is not the case for the Surrogate Thief.
A domestic dispute results in a murder. The murder weapon turns out to be connected to a thirty-two year old crime. This crime was one of the first Detective Joe Gunther investigated and it happened at a bad time in his life. The unsolved murder has always been a source of frustration and now he has a chance to make things right.
Archer Mayor has written a very tight mystery with The Surrogate Thief. There are other murders related to the old case and these keep the reader guessing and interested.
A secondary story about Joe Gunther’s girlfriend running for state senate is important in that it reveals a bit more about Gunther as a man. It takes a certain amount of room in The Surrogate Thief’s plot but it does not do so to the detriment of the overall mystery.
The Surrogate Thief is one of the excellent Joe Gunther mystery novels by Vermonter Archer Mayor.
The Surrogate Thief
A Joe Gunther Mystery
Archer Mayor
Grand Central Publishing 2007
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